Evolution Will Change How You See The World

Evolution Will Change How You See The World

“Evolution Will Change How You See The World.” When the idea of evolution sinks in – really sinks in – evolution hits home with power and an emotional rush. This entertaining video, with its stirring blend of words and images, inspires awe, and conveys a deep understanding of the human experience.http://www.lawrencerifkin.com

286 COMMENTS

‘The probability of any specific one of us being here is so infinitesimally small, we can be astonished and delighted by the mere fact of existing.’
To me this statement plays into the idea that any one of us is a goal or a purpose (as religions would like us to think) rather than being a simple end result. Calculating an infinitesimally small probability is nonsensical because for any one of us who exists the probability of us being here is no less than 100%. What actually happens is not chance but existence. Imagining it to be anything different is a human mental skill but it is not valid in any sense. What living organisms do during their existence, giving birth, killing, saving lives, etc. does have an effect on how things roll out as it has always will, neither astonishing nor delightful (even though I am happy to be alive) and neither positive nor negative. On that note I am happy for the ability to recommend positive action for the continuation of the species.

GOD the almighty have fashioned evolution…why you suppose if there is evolution …that will be an evidence against the existence of god….Islam had speak about evolution …an exemple of Adam who was as tall as circa 30 meters ..and we are still dwarfing…..Islam is not at all against evolution …but stand up that Adam was created apart even the given evolution within the species……

GOD the almighty have fashioned evolution…why you suppose if there is
evolution …that will be an evidence against the existence of
god….Islam had speak about evolution …an exemple of Adam who was as
tall as circa 30 meters ..and we are still dwarfing…..Islam is not at
all against evolution …but stand up that Adam was created apart even
the given evolution within the species……

I suppose it should come as no surprise that your islamic brainwashing has prevented you from expressing a remotely coherent argument.

During study….while studying…micropalentology and genetics of populations we studyied speciation …how really species emerge…briefly…after emergence of species ( generalised characters )… it will last untill the sudden change in climate or nutrient…some population will die while the other will evolve to give the boom ( specialised characters )..it will last untill that any harsh change comes…then will be the exctinction….mre briefly…emergence-boom-exctinction….but when one polpulation emerges …the other dies….If we evolve from shimps…why they are still living among us….

GOD the almighty have fashioned evolution…why you suppose if there is evolution

There is biological evolution because self replicating chemistry works approximately with some variations, and failed adaptations or uncompetitive copies do not continue to self replicate because their environment eliminates them.

Evolution of the stars, planets Solar Systems and the galaxies, happens because of the laws of physics, which have no requirements for anthropomorphised managers or creators. – in a universe where the Earth and Human populations, are such a tiny percentage of the whole, that in a scientific experiment they would be disregarded as a sub-miniscule trivial side issue.

“God-did-it”, evolved in the brains of servile followers, as a patch-over the gaps in the knowledge of their leaders, who wished to pose as being knowledgeable, so as to maintain confidence in their leadership!

We didn’t evolve from shrimps.
The insects evolved from shrimp-like ancestors, and so did the modern shrimps and prawns.

Humans evolved from chordate worms, fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and apes, while other modern organisms evolved from other branches of the evolutionary tree of life.

When evolutionary trees branch, just because one branch takes a particular form, that dies not mean all the other branches die! Some may go extinct, but the rest make up the millions of soecies which live on the Earth at the present time.

Evolutionary trees of life are the basis of all biological and medical classification of species. – So anyone who has studied ANY biology at high school or above, should understand them!

The last one I spoke to, a chemist and family of family (in-lawed), asked how there can be three lizards. One that swims, one that walks and one that flies. He too claimed evolution as gods work. Seems making statements makes you holly. Knowing what you are talking about doesn’t.

If that is so, I will correct my earlier explanation and say Humans did not evolve from Chimps.

Modern humans, chimps and bonobos, all evolved from a common ape ancestor – along with other ape and Homo species many of which have died out but some other earlier branches such as those leading to gorillas and orangutans still remain today.

Alan4discussion, Moderator and phil rimmer are really ready and able to diicuss …the others only they pretend to know…the over-prouding characters….I had studied evolution during my licence ..natural sciences ..geology option. I do believe in evolution within species…but the only difference that is fashionated by God….who creates Adam with his propper hands….how …only him who knews…. KORAN : “I called them not to witness the creation of the heavens and the earth, nor (even) their own creation: nor is it for helpers such as Me to take as lead (men) astray!” surat 18 verset 51…

During study….while studying…micropalentologyand genetics of populations we studyied speciation
…how really species emerge

It is of course quite possible to study this as an on-going process in ecosystems today. – particularly when comparing species on isolated islands with the ancestral continental species from which they evolved.

If we evolve from Chimps…why they are still living among us…. ?

If you have to ask this question, you did not understand ANY of the branching processes of evolution, or phylogenetic relationships between species, or the biological classification systems.

I had read Koran many times in arabic….It is from God -for me- without any doubt…It is fascinating even in listennig without knowing any arabic….for whom who wants try…surat saffat narrator saad ghamdi…

I must apologise to those who think I might be too harsh with Ge but, I get angry because, there but for the grace of common sense go I! That then makes me double angry because I would not go on a site and tell everyone they are doomed because they do not believe or are not Muslim and think it’s ok to do so.

you know why we are in the primate order…only because of the twelve cranien nerves and the thumb opposates the other four digits…waw … what this order had in common…the bear had the thumb that opposates the four digits but he is only a fellow not a member .. he lucks the twelve cranien nerves ..instead he had only ten….

If you have studied and understood the science of geology, you should have no difficulty in discussing with me, right across the spectrum from star formation, planet formation and the geological history of the Earth, starting with its planetary assembly from colliding objects in the accretion disk of our Sun, and on through its atmospheric changes, rock formations, and plate tectonics.
I also study the atmospheres and rock structures of other planets.

I do believe in evolution within species…

There is indeed diversity and on-going natural selection within species, but the big-picture of biological evolution from the earliest single cells, goes all the way back through billions of years of Earth’s history. – as I have linked @#7.

but the only difference that is fashionated by God….who creates Adam with his propper hands

The mythical story of the creating of Adam, has NOTHING whatever to do with the scientific theory or evidence of evolution, nor does it have anything to do with geology or the history of the Earth.

Humans have only existed on Earth for a tiny fraction of the time life has existed on Earth, and the Solar System with Earth, has only existed for small part of the time the universe has existed since the big-bang. Our Sun is not a first generation star.

Yes! It is because of the matching DNA which we share with our primate evolutionary relatives, and all have inherited it from our common ape ancestors.
We are a different species because of the different DNA generated from mutations (arising since our species branched off from theirs) which we do not share with them.

only because of the twelve cranien nerves and the thumb opposate the other four digits

Nope! Your lack of understanding of genetics and phylogenetic classification is showing. Nobody relies on minor phenotypic differences since DNA classification became possible.

the bear had the thumb that opposate the four digits but he is only a fellow not a member

While both are mammals, bears are separated from humans by millions of years of evolution.

The family of real bears can ultimately be traced back to the oldest genus, the Ursavus, which was roughly the size of a sheepdog and had evolved from a canine ancestor.

The bears (Ursidae) form a separate family within the order of carnivora. The bear family can be divided into three subfamilies: the giant panda (Ailuropodinae), the spectacled bear (Tremarctinae), and the real bears (Ursinae). The family of Ursinae consists of six different species, all of which have similar external characteristics like strong claws and a robust body.

Please see the linked diagram which represents this ‘evolutionary tree’.

I am referring to the phenotype not to the genotype….the only common character in primate..is the twelve cranien nerves…and the opposable thumb……the first order the primate form more then 20 mammalian ordrers..

I am referring to the phenotype not to the genotype….the only common character in primate..is the twelve cranien nerves

Not really! Primates have many common phenotypic characteristics throughout the organs of their bodies – as is to be expected from common ancestry.

Biologists have spent the last ten years or so using DNA analysis for correcting classification errors which have arisen from misinterpretations of phenotypic features arising from parallel developments in the evolution of related species.

DNA gives a vastly greater number of matches or contrasts, than the more obvious phenotypic features and hence a much more accurate picture.

creation is understood from God messengers not the misleading scientific descriptive books that descripts the outer things…. KORAN : “If ye obey a man like yourselves, behold, it is certain ye will be lost.
34.
“Does he promise that when ye die and become dust and bones, ye shall be brought forth (again)?
35.
“Far, very far is that which ye are promised!
36.
“There is nothing but our life in this world! We shall die and we live! But we shall never be raised up again!
37.
“He is only a man who invents a lie against Allah, but we are not the ones to believe in him!”
38. surat mouminoun

DNA matches 98 per cent…even we had ressemblances with flies ….but the creation is more evident when scrutinzing evidences given by brophets….who spend their entire lives warning mankind….I still want an answer about Ibraham who was really…true or false not any other attributes…praise to God who takes me to the pahtway…

the creator says in KORAN : “Man We did create from a quintessence (of clay);
12.
Then We placed him as (a drop of) sperm in a place of rest, firmly fixed;
13.
Then We made the sperm into a clot of congealed blood; then of that clot We made a (foetus) lump; then we made out of that lump bones and clothed the bones with flesh; then we developed out of it another creature. So blessed be Allah, the best to create!
14. After that, at length ye will die
15.
Again, on the Day of Judgment, will ye be raised up.”
16.

In terms of mathematics…there is only three fields of equtions….Determinism….Probability…and between the two is Chaos….but some interfers probability in the field of determinism or in the field of chaos…giving numbers of emerging things with one followed by tens of zero….when probability had nothing to do…..

We made the sperm into a clot of congealed blood; then of that clot We
made a (foetus) lump; then we made out of that lump bones and clothed
the bones with flesh; then we developed out of it another creature. So
blessed be Allah, the best to create!

We’ve seen this particular nonsense propagated before, from that Turkish fraud Harun Yahya, I think.

It is of course, laughable from the point of view of basic Biology, representing merely the prevailing ignorance of the Greek Physician Galen’s biological knowledge from the 2nd century AD, which is all that the compilers of the quaran would have been aware of at the time.

God had send to us the revelation and gave us the free will to accept or reject his message…this message about whom messengers had sacrifice their entire lives without any misacceptance…. KORAN say : " He said: "Get ye down, both of you,- all together, from the Garden, with enmity one to another: but if, as is sure, there comes to you Guidance from Me, whosoever follows My Guidance, will not lose his way, nor fall into misery. 123. "But whosoever turns away from My Message, verily for him is a life narrowed down, and We shall raise him up blind on the Day of Judgment." 124.

Clearly the ancients observed the thick menstrual discharge from a woman and assumed it had some relation that they didn’t of course understand to the other emission from a woman – ie. a baby. As for still believing that ‘another creature’ , ie. woman, ‘developed out of it’, that is of course just the old Adam & Eve fable from the jewish bible being plagiarised for quaran readers.

you mention calcium …nitogen also I could add magnesium cofactors of more than 300 enzymes…cooper cofactors of of more tahn 100 enzymes…zinc cofactors of more than 70 enzymes….and more…are they encoded…the only encoded ones are proteines…the well known 20 aminoacids…evolution lucks complementarities….

During my study of natural sciences…observing ancient fossil forms of life under microscope especially algaes….ancient forms compact in each other…but the very ancient ones had become mudstone….yes mudstone…another form of clay….

Since the chimp and hominid last common ancestor the chimp hand evolved to be much longer to facilitate living in trees better with greatly elongated fingers with which to grasp larger branches in higher safer trees. As a result they lost having truly opposable thumbs with reduced tool making facility. Hominids developed tool making 3.3 million years ago and so retained our primitive hand shape and so were probably condemned to stay nearer the ground defending themselves perhaps with sticks and stones. Opposable digits have been common in a variety of species including dinosaurs and birds. Bears need them for catching fish.

In phenotypic terms the most notable feature shared by primates is in the brain structure around the visual cortex, a characteristic fissure adding extra surface area.

Humans actually have thirteen cranial nerves but the “Terminal” Nerve (CN0) seems to have evolved out of use. It probably responded to pheromones. In hamsters which the nerve still functional it enhances sexual activity. It is very tiny and easy to overlook.

Nerves evolve out of use if their function is no longer needed or replaced.

Bears may well have a few extra cranial nerves no longer easy to spot. Complex facial expressions with little face flesh and much fur would see some motor nerves fade away. Bears are notably solitary with little need for sociabilty and facial communication. Neurons use a lot of energy and brains work on a process of “use it or lose it”.

@God Exist. Alright well if you don’t want to talk about that then lets move on to the second element to how your religious authority purports to create life out of other things, congealed blood. Congealed blood is a reaction the human body creates when platelets aggregate after reacting with blood-borne proteins to clot. Once blood has congealed it ceases to be a transporter of oxygen, which from my understanding is sorta important when it comes to sustaining life. So Ill ask you, why does your religious authority use dead blood to create life?

So far we have clay, and dead blood. This life recipe isn’t looking good…

During my study of natural sciences…observing ancient fossil forms of
life under microscope especially algaes….ancient forms compact in each
other…but the very ancient ones had become mudstone….yes
mudstone…another form of clay….

So, you have you observed how once living organisms became fossilised.
Do you seriously believe that the process happens in reverse ? LOL!

Voices to God messengers in terms of modern psychology, are recognised as delusions from psychotic conditions and psychological disorders!

Quotes from ancient texts in ages of ignorance only reflect the limited understanding of people at that time, and the fact that some scribe wrote down what he thought about it. – With a religious badge of “God told me so it must be true”, thrown in to add weight to the claim!

not the misleading scientific descriptive books that descripts the outer things

Evidence based scientific books are far from misleading. They contain information which has been tested and confirmed many times by objective observations and accurate measurements! An in ability to understand basic textbooks, is no argument against the well verified information they contain.

“He is only a man who invents a lie against Allah,
but we are not the ones to believe in him!”

This sounds rather like the habitual liar, Donald Trump with his “alternative facts” and dedicated followers! !

It is well understood that believers will only accept information which is compatible with their core indoctrinated preconceptions, – but what some people choose to believe, has no bearing on what is confirmed or refuted by scientific methodology.

There are thousands of believers in different religions, and thousands of mythological stories they adamantly insist on believing, regardless of evidence to the contrary.

The weakest arguments need constantly reaffirming to maintain belief and blindness to material evidence!
It is one of the problems of religious indoctrination, that it serves as a mental blockage providing pseudo-answers and preventing the learning of properly researched information and the understanding of the workings in the real world.

Science flies men to the Moon and probes to the outer planets of the Solar System. Mythology flies horses into a fairyland in the clouds!

Of course there was no free oxygen in the atmosphere of the early Earth, no multicellular organisms with circulating blood, and no photosynthesising algae.
Like humans algae are multicellular Eukaryotes which evolved long after the first living cells.

Early Earth probably had an atmosphere dominated by carbon dioxide similar to the atmosphere of Venus today.
There are a group of one-celled organisms that can live in an oxygen free environment.These are the bacteria or prokaryotes.
They do not have a nucleus and reproduce only by cell division.
These creatures are the earliest evidence of life on earth.
They were the first organisms to develop photosynthesis.

yes there was no oxygen..carbon will gives dioxide carbon in presence of oxygen but the carbon had given the well known reservoirs of methane CH4…because of the luck of oxygen…that was in the beginnig …given that earth had cooled up 3800 millions years ago in the Hadeen dated with the first stone found on earth a Gneiss.. a methamorphic stone found in Greenland… 3500 millions years ago appears the first evidences of life cyanobacteria and stromatolithes…but human is the last big species to appear on earth….even many small species still emerge during the phenomenon called speciation…. this has nothing to do with rejecting one more god …as Ibn Rochd once proposed…yes I agree with rejecting gods…there is no gods but Allah …not so easy to reject Ibraham s God…God of all creatures… the lord the almighty…

Give it a rest mate. Are you so insecure that you have to blurt out your delusions like a prattling fool?
Nobody here is impressed by primitive arab doggerel. Reality has much more to offer. You should try it.

Most of us have probably read the quaran at some point, and then disposed of it appropriately.

3500 millions years ago appears the first evidences of life cyanobacteria and stromatolithes…

These are related to the Great Oxygenation Event, when the first photosynthesising organisms started to convert the CO2 in the atmosphere to free oxygen, but they come millions of years after the first life which developed in the pre-oxygen atmosphere.

Because there was lots of iron dissolved in the seas of the early Earth, all the first liberated oxygen turned this to rust forming the iron ore deposits mining geologists seek. It was only after oxidation of surface minerals was complete, that free oxygen built up in the atmosphere.

Prior to that for millions of years, life existed on chemosynthesis as it does in hot springs and near hydrothermal sea-floor vents today.

Photosynthesis and chemosynthesis are both processes by which organisms produce food; photosynthesis is powered by sunlight while chemosynthesis runs on chemical energy.

Ecosystems depend upon the ability of some organisms to convert inorganic compounds into food that other organisms can then exploit (or eat!). In most cases, primary food production occurs in a process called photosynthesis, which is powered by sunlight. In a few environments, primary production happens though a process called chemosynthesis, which runs on chemical energy. Together, photosynthesis and chemosynthesis fuel all life on Earth.

Chemosynthesis is the use of energy released by inorganic chemical reactions to produce food. Chemosynthesis is at the heart of deep-sea communities, sustaining life in absolute darkness, where sunlight does not penetrate.

All chemosynthetic organisms use the energy released by chemical reactions to make a sugar, but different species use different pathways. For example, the most extensive ecosystem based on chemosynthesis lives around undersea hot springs. At these hydrothermal vents, vent bacteria oxidize hydrogen sulfide, add carbon dioxide and oxygen, and produce sugar, sulfur, and water: CO2 + 4H2S + O2 -> CH20 + 4S + 3H2O.

Other bacteria make organic matter by reducing sulfide or oxidizing methane. Chemosynthetic bacterial communities have been found in hot springs on land and on the seafloor around hydrothermal vents, cold seeps, whale carcasses, and sunken ships.

but human is the last big species to appear on earth….even many small species still emerge during the phenomenon called speciation…

Speciation is simply diversity caused by imprecise copying of self replicating DNA in chromosomes combined with the natural selection processes which increase the reproduction of better adapted and more efficient organisms and the weeding out of defective ones when the defects are expressed in phenotypes. Where populations are separated and the selective basis changes differences build up over time until the different populations can no longer cross breed. This can take a very long time. Lions and tigers for example can still produce hybrid offspring, but can’t in the wild because they live on different continents with no connecting populations in between. Gulls on the other hand, being more mobile, have populations which can interbreed and some which can’t demonstrating ring species – that is speciation in action!

The European herring gull (L. argentatus argenteus), which lives primarily in Great Britain and Ireland, can hybridize with the American herring gull (L. smithsonianus), (living in North America), which can also hybridize with the Vega or East Siberian herring gull (L. vegae), the western subspecies of which, Birula’s gull (L. vegae birulai), can hybridize with Heuglin’s gull (L. heuglini), which in turn can hybridize with the Siberian lesser black-backed gull (L. fuscus). All four of these live across the north of Siberia. The last is the eastern representative of the lesser black-backed gulls back in north-western Europe, including Great Britain.

The lesser black-backed gulls and herring gulls are sufficiently different that they do not normally hybridize; thus the group of gulls forms a continuum except where the two lineages meet in Europe.

Detailed studies show that on the ground, the population dynamics are more complicated than this.

You get branches forming a true species separation, when intermediate sub-species die out.

Speciation and evolution is an on-going process which is happening all the time with plants, animals and other organisms of all sizes and types.

Those organisms which reproduce fastest producing many generations and large numbers (such as bacteria), and with high selective mortality rates, also adapt and evolve quickest – as with increasingly anti-biotic-resistant pathogens.

We had sudyied earth genesis and species emergence… it was in corcondance with religion…I remember studying clay…we had had a professor who teaches us argile ( clay ) and how tetrahedric silicates along with octahedric alluminosilicates form sheets of TETRA-OCTA-TETRA-OCTA…..the periodicity depends on the type of clay…monmorillonite , kaolinite , vermuculite…..within these sheets exist interfoliar spaces when filled up with water the clay is stirred up and swells to become inpermeable…. this astonishing phenomenon is in complete corcondance with what is described in Koran when rain touchs soil…. .’O mankind! if ye have a doubt about the Resurrection, (consider) that We created you out of dust, then out of sperm, then out of a leech-like clot, then out of a morsel of flesh, partly formed and partly unformed, in order that We may manifest (our power) to you; and We cause whom We will to rest in the wombs for an appointed term, then do We bring you out as babes, then (foster you) that ye may reach your age of full strength; and some of you are called to die, and some are sent back to the feeblest old age, so that they know nothing after having known (much), and (further), thou seest the earth barren and lifeless, but when We pour down rain on it, it is stirred (to life), it swells, and it puts forth every kind of beautiful growth (in pairs).

I remember studying clay…we had had a professor who teaches us argile ( clay ) and how tetrahedric silicates along with octahedric alluminosilicates form sheets of TETRA-OCTA-TETRA-OCTA…..the periodicity depends on the type of clay…monmorillonite , kaolinite , vermuculite…..within these sheets exist interfoliar spaces when filled up with water the clay is stirred up and swells to become inpermeable…. this astonishing phenomenon is in complete corcondance with what is described in Koran when rain touchs soil

I am fairly sure that bronze age farmers and herdsmen observed soil structures and the effects of rain. – especially those who lived in mud brick structures. Some also used clay to waterproof irrigation channels.
They had had for centuries, artisans in their communities, who used clay of various types to make pots!
This was well established bronze-age and iron-age technology.

I also remember studying clay when I did a short course on ceramics, including pottery and glazing pottery.

We created you out of dust, then out of sperm, then out of a leech-like clot, then out of a morsel of flesh, partly formed and partly unformed, in order that We may manifest (our power) to you; and We cause whom We will to rest in the wombs for an appointed term, then do We bring you out as babes, then (foster you) that ye may reach your age of full strength;

It should be no surprise that herdsmen were familiar the with breeding animals, the appearance of aborted foetuses, birth, or the length of gestation periods!

the earth barren and lifeless, but when We pour down rain on it, it is stirred (to life), it swells, and it puts forth every kind of beautiful growth (in pairs).

Those who lived in semi-desert climates, with seasonal rains and droughts, would undoubtedly take note of such issues which critically affected their food supplies. The Egyptians had built huge social and economic structures based on seasonal cycles, thousands of years earlier.

While these issues would be of importance to those historical communities, I don’t see why they need to have any religious connection unless the priests were trying have their god take credit for the weather and climate. You or I could go out in the appropriate localities, and make such observations today!

Are we still having to put up with this infantile nonsense from the muslim troll who calls hinself ‘God exist’ ?

Apparently the latest ‘astonishing phenomenon’ to have attracted his attention is that clay swells when it gets wet. This from the same book that tells us the sun rises and falls from a muddy puddle while traversing a stationary and apparently flat Earth.

I am all for having informed discussions, but this feeble-minded ‘koran-science’ drivel is frankly an insult to the intelligence, and a waste of everyones’ time here.

As if confirmation were needed, that the quaran is the product of a profoundly ignorant culture (by todays’ standards), we have of course examples such as :

65 : 12. It is GOD who hath created seven heavens, and as many different stories
of the earth: the divine command descendeth between them; that ye may know
that GOD is omnipotent, and that GOD comprehendeth all things by his
knowledge.

The ‘seven heavens’ are a specific reference to the contemoprary Ptolemaic model of the cosmos, of an Earth surrounded by the Sun, Moon and five known planets. This is why 7 was such a propitious number among superstitious ancient cultures. It doesn’t, however, say much for his omnipotence or knowledge that the desert god of islam comprehendeth so little about the Universe he was supposed to have ‘created’.

this feeble-minded ‘koran-science’ drivel is frankly an insult to the intelligence, and a waste of everyones’ time here.

I don’t agree. I don’t want to debate atheists. I’d rather go down the pub with them.

No mind will ever be changed by rational argument and evidence, if it has never been formed in that way originally. But, wanting to do a proper days atheist work, we know this site is increasingly scrutinised by Turkish hackers. I want to give them and there visitors here not a single ad hominem, but reason and evidence from top to bottom. It is always interesting to improve how one engages at this difficult level.

God exist will bring other young Muslims here less indoctrinated and more open to unalloyed truth. Every ignorant unevidenced belief expressed here, made glaring by evermore false detailing is tradeable for gold some of which can be taken away.

Phil, I appreciate your viewpoint, but there is only so far you can progress when dealing with such damaged minds.
They don’t come here to be better informed, merely to bask in the delusional self-righteousness of their own expression.

stationary and apparently flat earth….Koran had even mentioned the spatial periodicity of day and night….”He created the heavens and the earth in true (proportions): He makes the Night overlap the Day, and the Day overlap the Night: He has subjected the sun and the moon (to His law): Each one follows a course for a time appointed. Is not He the Exalted in Power – He Who forgives again and again?” earth is not flat in Koran…..when you say muddy puddle that is not the word of god…it is said by Dhou lkarnain a middle age personality mentioned in Koran ….how he had seen the sun…

@ #66 God exist
Poetry is NOT science. I could quote a hundred, no, thousands of equally eloquent descriptions of the sun and the moon, but they don’t add to FACTUAL knowledge, because that is not their point. It is a shame that your education has failed as yet to make that distinction clear.

Has it never occurred to you to question the absurdity of the proposition that the alleged ‘creator’of a thousand billion galaxies suddenly decided to come to this tiny insignificant planet and give an all-important ‘final revelation’ in an obscure local arabic dialect, to an illiterate merchant warlord in a middle-eastern desert backwater?
You are a classic illustration of the insidious effects of childhood indoctrination, with no apparent ability to think for yourself. All your knowledge about the world is seen through the filter of an ignorant dead 7th century culture.

I appreciate your viewpoint, but there is only so far you can progress when dealing with such damaged minds.

But I expect nothing in terms of change with anyone I debate one to one. Only someone to buy the next round. It is always those onlookers who haven’t got fixed minds yet that concern me.

They don’t come here to be better informed, merely to bask in the delusional self-righteousness of their own expression.

They mostly come as some test of faith. Its important they have no excuse to feel vindicated. Even if the only outcome is they are merely less certain of their justified right to indoctrinate others. Cultural changes seem glacial until you look back over the decades.

@God Exist. Look, I’m a fiction writer. It’s what I do for a living. On one of my books several reviewers read “god” or “god’s intentions” into what I wrote but I can assure you I had no intention of creating a story where god could be found in the pages. I am not a prophet or anything of the sort, but fiction can and does move people in strange ways.

Now isn’t it possible that what you’re believing is a result of not just the text on the pages of the Koran, but your emotions and those of your family and friend’s rather then any actual evidence to verify the claims of the Koran?

Understand this : when the quaran, taking a pause from plagiarised bible texts, makes references to the natural world, it merely does so in terms of the knowledge that was available at the time, for example the ‘seven heavens’ mentioned earlier. This is because the men writing this scripture obviously couldn’t know anything else. That isn’t a criticism of their poetic sensiblities, because ignorance is merely a lack of knowledge, not of imagination.

You can call it the ‘word of god’ as much as you like, but that is merely a slogan. It means nothing. Slogans are for fools.

I have to say that this is a claim that is highly subjective. We have insufficient data to determine “God Exist” (‘s) mental condition.

They don’t come here to be better informed, merely to bask in the delusional self-righteousness of their own expression.

Again, this is speculation and an implausible one at that. Human behavior tends to avoid discomfort, and I can easily see how several of us challenging deeply held beliefs would be uncomfortable for anyone. All this person has is the belief system. He or she has been criticized by all of us, admonished on more then one occasion by The Mods and yet I can see this person trying because he/she is still here.

I think we should certainly continue to bring these challenges, but I would be remiss if I didn’t consider the stakes involved for this person if we became successful in sewing the seeds of doubt in this mind-prison God Exist, exists in.

It seems that several of us would rather work with him, even if we have to do it on less then desirable terms, and the implications of labels like “damaged mind” or “fool”(s) are counterproductive to that end.

Eric, I am not offering up a psychiatric diagnosis here. Given that Richard himself has accurately described childhood religious indoctrination as ‘child abuse‘, I merely stand by the assertion that the unfortunate ‘God exists’ is, in a manner of speaking, ‘damaged’.

Anyone with the arrogance to come to a prominent atheist website and engage in proselytising monologue should expect the re-education he/she requires, to be delivered as emphatically as necessary.

Eric, for sure it is generally better to play the ball, not the man, so to speak. The problem with fundamentalists is that their heads are so full of the only ‘book’ they have ever properly read (and often memorised), that it would take a long time before you ever got through to the actual person inside the scripture-quoting automaton, and a few rebuttals on a web forum aren’t going to get you very far. Still, I agree it’s always worth a try.

“sperm” you’ve mentioned this as a translation from the Q’uran . Now I know this is a bit picky but precision matters. Did you in fact mean semen? If you are saying that god put an individual sperm with a clot of blood to make man (and by the way that won’t work – it’s an experiment anyone can do with a cheap microscope and access to a penis). If you are saying this then I would assume you can point me to a part in the Q’uarn that defines what a sperm is clearly. While I remember reading a few passages that mentioned seminal fluids (water was the translation I believe) I cannot remember any specific descriptions of what a sperm looks like, how it behaves. Given that people at the time did not have microscopes they would have never seen a sperm I think it would be important for God to make it clear what he was talking about otherwise they would have had no point of reference. Now in science this is done all the time. The Higgs Boson was described in precise terms with very specific physical predictions of it’s mass, behavior etc. And now many decades latter after having built the biggest and most precise machine every imagined by humans we can now confirm that the predicted particle which was necessary for our current model actually exists. Now this is something your holy book just doesn’t manage. If you could show me a quote which describes what a sperm is in the Q’uran that would be truly remarkable and you might convince me your religion is onto something. Otherwise it is just like every other holy book and myth out there. Nothing that any other iron age peasant couldn’t have written.

So your comparison of Abiogenesis to a deity putting sperm on a clot of blood does not come close to the precision of any scientific prediction. Nor does your throwing quotes from the Q’uran at us help because we have no way of telling if any of it is in fact true. You have not asked the first and most important question “How do I know this is true” You cannot use because the Q’uran tells me so because Christians and Jews will use the same reasoning as did the Greeks and Romans, and every other religion out there. “Why should anyone believe this is the word of God?”

Do you mean “big individual organisms”, because that makes no sense! Within species individuals come within a range of sizes. (eg, in Humans Caucasians and Pygmy bushmen)
It is very common in evolution for species over time, to become made up of larger or smaller individuals. On mountains it is very common for dwarf varieties of a plant species to grow on the wind-swept tops, and larger varieties of the same species to grow in the sheltered valleys.
Adaptive changes are particularly common of isolated islands, where gigantic and dwarf species evolve in the restricted environment. (eg Komodo – Giant lizards,) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insular_dwarfism

“Last”, also makes no sense, as evolution is an on-going continuous process, where many other species, and large mammals, have branched off from ancestral stock, or other closely related species, more recently than humans branched from Bonobos.

even many small species still emerge during the phenomenon called speciation

Species made up of smaller, shorter lived, faster breeding individuals with higher mortality rates, can make evolutionary adaptations, and therefore new evolutionary branches, more quickly than larger slow maturing species, but ALL SPECIES change over time in response to selection pressure.

The notion that evolution is in some way centred around man, or has some purpose related to humans, is simply unscientific nonsense!
The mechanisms of evolution and natural selection, have shown no examples of it working like that, in tens of thousands of observations and experiments.!

@God Exist : ….“sperm” you’ve mentioned this as a translation from
the Q’uran . Now I know this is a bit picky but precision matters. Did
you in fact mean semen?

I’ve noticed it to be a common ploy among bible/quaran apologists to re-cast their translation of scripture with scatterings of modern scientific terms to give a false impression that this knowledge was somehow already prevalent. Of course, this is easily rebutted if one is prepared to go back to the source text and understand the true contemporaneous meaning of the words used.

However, the shorter and simpler answer (thanks be to Occam) is that the authors of the bible/quaran did not and could not have such insight into modern scientific knowledge. The widely and well documented history of Science proves it, whether in the fields of biology or cosmology, or much else.

What they have given us is, as you rightly say, ‘nothing that any other iron age peasant couldn’t have written’ (assuming the necessary level of education for the time).

Their ‘revealed’ texts merely reveal a state of ignorance that they witlessly put into the mouths of their god(s).

One of the ‘approved’ translations reads thus :“O men, if ye be in doubt concerning the resurrection, consider that we first created you of the dust of the ground; afterwards, of seed*; afterwards, of a little coagulated blood; afterwards, of a piece of flesh, perfectly
formed in part, and in part imperfectly formed; that we might make our power manifest unto you: and we caused that which we please to rest in the wombs, until the appointed time of delivery. Then we bring you forth infants; and afterwards we permit you to attain your age of full strength: and one of you dieth in his youth, and another of you is postponed to a decrepit age, so that he forgetteth whatever he knew. Thou seest the earth sometimes dried up and barren : but when we send down rain thereon, it is put in motion and swelleth, and produceth every kind of luxuriant vegetables.
This showeth that god is the truth, and that he raiseth the dead to life, and that he is almighty”

Yes, I suspect he is not going to have an answer I consider satisfactory but I’ll keep asking him these sorts of things. For one I gain something from knowing what those who disagree with me believe, another issue is the most fundamentalist believers often have the most brittle beliefs. In my experience its the one like William Lane Craig who are just dishonest and infinitely flexible who are most likely to stick with their beliefs. I was an honest Mormon growing up at 15 I was confronted with the cognitive dissonance that my beliefs could not be true given facts from different editions of the Book of Mormon I could go and look up. My belief left me in all of 60 seconds. Now not everyone is honest but as I was both a fundamentalist and honest I didn’t go to some wishy washy nonsense or become spiritual or any other such nonsense but just accepted I’d been conned and made sure I’d look for better evidence next time and be aware of how easily conned I was. So yes it is unlikely we will see a change in mind from post to post on this site.

Your ego takes a battering when people come up with things you cannot answer. Consider what God Exists is showing us here. He thinks that simply presenting pronouncements from his holy book will touch our hearts with the power of Allah. That logic and internal consistency will not be required. This is because in all likelihood he has been indoctrinated into this religion on Mothers Knee or perhaps at a difficult time of his life. He will not have been presented with internal contradictions. In the same way I was never taught in Sunday School about Lot and his daughters, about the numerous God commanded genocides, about God’s rules for slavery as this would have forced me to look at the book with a critical eye. He has been oversold the myth of Islam solving every scientific problem of the modern world. Of course this is nonsense or else why are there so few Islamic ground breaking technologies or scientific discoveries, why did we have to wait for the Wright Brothers to invent the aeroplane, Why did genetics have to wait for Watson and Crick, why did Islam having discovered all this science not bother to apply anything? They had excellent scholarship for a short time and then it was quashed by fanatical Islam which has resulted in its current level of general ignorance compared to the West. So I actually have enormous sympathy for God Exists and hope he continues to debate with us here and I hope he engages in debate rather than just sprouting quotes at us. With luck he will leave us challenged and looking for answers if he does this we both know he won’t find it in the Q’uran and may begin to moderate his beliefs and hopefully make them comport themselves with reality. It does take some guts to go to a site like ours and put your ego on the line, I hope he keeps it up.

insulting is a sign of feeble patience….you have to accept other oppinions…when it comes to the meaning of semen-sperm…it is the literal translation who somehow misleads….sciences give nouns during the first periode of gestation like morula-blastula-granula….phenomenon where each has its own lasting time….Koran instead names only three forms which had the same periode of time 40 days….it is the first periode of time which is translated sometimes sperm-semen ( more developped zygote ) ..I will give you hadith explainnig that… Messenger of Allah (ﷺ), the truthful and the receiver of the truth informed us, saying, “The creation of you (humans) is gathered in the form of semen in the womb of your mother for forty days, then it becomes a clinging thing in similar (period), then it becomes a lump of flesh like that, then Allah sends an angel who breathes the life into it; and (the angel) is commanded to record four things about it: Its provision, its term of life (in this world), its conduct; and whether it will be happy or miserable. By the One besides Whom there is no true god! Verily, one of you would perform the actions of the dwellers of Jannah until there is only one cubit between him and it (Jannah), when what is foreordained would come to pass and he would perform the actions of the inmates of Hell until he enter it. And one of you would perform the actions of the inmates of Hell, until there is only one cubit between him and Hell. Then he would perform the acts of the dwellers of Jannah until he would enter it.” the word clinging thing is sometimes translated leech because the initial word alaqa has four meannig : clinging, nidataing, leech and a clot…each translator choose only one of them….

You have to accept that others have opinions and are entitled to express them. You, in no way, have to accept that others have correct opinions, nor indeed that they are truthful in their expression.

We often see in evangelical christianity a phenomenon of “Lying for Jesus”. This is when a parent, say, will knowingly tell an untruth to her child to achieve a suitable level of compliance with a doctrine, and when caught out in the lie by an outsider will assert that the (holy!) end will justify the means.

You must always, if you are concerned to have integrity in the expression of your life, accept others suitably and independently corroborated facts. And it is polite for the purposes of any discussion that the other is sincere and if telling what you know to be untruths, at least sincerely believes them true.

Leech is a far better translation for blatocyst in my view. It is not surprising that humans knew something of its development. Galen (129-210 CE) did a lot of dissections, though mostly on monkeys.

I realise that you have a deep commitment to asserting that your god exists and is the central feature you have built around, but you should also understand that I matured out of beliefs in the supernatural and gods, as a teenager many decades ago.
Gods play no part in my thinking, but understanding the actions and motivations of their followers is an important skill when living in communities where they intrude into politics and the life of others. (Damaging wars between different religious groups are common – setting sections of communities against each other.)

Each religion inculcates the need to assert its doctrines and dominate the thinking of its followers, so Catholics persist in asserting that a piece of biscuit is the body of Jesus, and a Hindu once debated on this RDFS site, insisting that bathing in a “holy river” full of concentrated human sewage and chemical effluent, was “purifying”!

I will give you hadith explainig that… Messenger of Allah (ﷺ), the truthful and the receiver of the truth informed us, saying,

It is the sign of a weak view, that its “truth” has to be constantly reasserted, rather than a view which is self-evident from the available material evidence and objective observations.

“The creation of you (humans) is gathered in the form of semen in the womb of your mother for forty days, then it becomes a clinging thing in similar (period), then it becomes a lump of flesh like that,

That is a crude, but roughly accurate description which could have been made from observations of the butchering of pregnant animals, or observations of the anatomy of women who had been put tot the sword.

then Allah sends an angel who breathes the life into it;

This is a different supernatural claim to that of Catholic Christians who claim “ensoulment by God at conception”. – The moment of fertilisation of an egg by a sperm.

However, there is no evidence from embryologists of any changes in the living status of embryos, or any significant difference in the development patterns of humans from other placental mammals at this stage.
All the medical evidence indicates that human consciousness is the product of the brain, combined with the endocrine system. –
No “souls” required!

and (the angel) is commanded to record four things about it: Its provision, its term of life (in this world), its conduct; and whether it will be happy or miserable.

This is departing from evidence based medicine, and going off into the fanciful world of mythical and mystical supernatural stories.

the word clinging thing is sometimes translated leech

I think “clinging” does describe the implantation of a zygote and blastocyst. Given the lack of medical vocabulary, an analogy with a leech would be a credible description made by someone struggling for the words.

the word clinging thing is sometimes translated leech because the initial word alaqa has four meannig : clinging, nidataing, leech and a clot…each translator choose only one of them….

This reminds me of a comment I made about translations in numerous versions of Christian fundamentalism in 2015!

Nope! – Many new species branched from their relative species later than humans!

Even on the Primate tree of life (see link @#13), Chimps and Bonobos branched from each other AFTER they branched from humans: – and fossils indicate, that there were several species of human before some of them became extinct.

GOD the almighty have fashioned evolution…
why you suppose if there is evolution …
that will be an evidence against the existence of god….Islam had speak about evolution …an exemple of Adam who was as tall as circa 30 meters

I am sure Koranic evolution will be confirmed: – when the fossils of 30 metre tall humans are found!(which are not later confirmed to be the bones of elephants or dinosaurs) 🙂

..and we are still dwarfing….

Ah! Those African Bushmen – the tree climbing “most advanced forms of humans”, – which genetics confirm as part of the African ancestral stock

Islam is not at all against evolution …but stand up that Adam was created apart even the given evolution within the species……

That would be the fanciful fudge of theistic evolution, – not the scientific theories and confirmed experiments of NeoDarwinian evolutionary genetics!

But even modern embryologists till now give names to different stages of segmentation-gastrulation that depends on the morphology, with different periods of time like morula-blastula-gastrula-neurula….that is disturbing and needs memorising ; while Koran gives only three names for four months : notfa-alaqa-modgha…..when each name describes 40 days…and each chosen name is meaningful : notfa ( semen-zygote….) – alaqa ( clinging – leech-like – clot ….) – modgha ( lump-morsel …)…when the prophet the illiterate explicits to modeste people….with easy way while embryologists teach only graduate students…….https://youtu.be/J_Dllu42eEA keith.l. moore

promoting sciences is good and promoting secularism in countries that uses religion to its own interests is essential …even most moslim countries are secularists even if they show otherwise….but that had nothing to do with the existence of the one God…..who had sent the previous revelations…and the last two prophets jesus and mohamed……

The fundamental mistake you are making, because you have been so deceived by generations of ‘islamic teachers’, is to take scriptural myths as literal truth. Your attempts here to contort modern scientific findings to align with these ancient texts are the reason you are being firmly rebutted, and yes, sometimes even mocked.

Your quaran was compiled by copying the earlier Hebrew myths such as the stories of Adam & Eve, Noah, Abraham, Moses and re-casting them in arabic poetry that could be chanted by those who were at that time, in the majority, totally illiterate.

The problem that those like you reveal, desparate to cling to some kind of ‘faith’, is that you fundamentally misunderstand the purpose of myths. Myths are stories that are based on tradition. Some may have some an element of factual origin, while others are completely fictional. Myths are sacred tales that explain the world and man’s experience in terms that were understood by their originators, and often used to establish moral guidance, when properly read as allegory. The Hebrew myths copied and augmented by the quaranic arabs are examples of this. They copied the Adam and Eve creation myth and spiced it with some of the primitive ideas of embryology coming from Greek scholars from Hippocrates to Galen, work that had been passed to Byzantine scholars.

I can only repeat what was stated earlier : the authors of the quaran did not and could not have insight into modern scientific knowledge. The widely and well documented history of Science proves it, whether in the fields of biology or cosmology, or much else.

A god that believes the human female was created out of a single male is entirely ignorant of biology.
A god that places the Earth at the centre of the universe,
that believes there are only 5 planets,
that believes the stars were put in the heavens after the earth was created,
that believes that the stars are set as “twelve signs in the heaven”, and” have set them out in
various figures”
is entirely ignorant of cosmology, while clearly adhering to the ancient belief in astrology.
A god that thinks mountains were placed to hold down the earth is entirely ignorant of modern geology.
A god that receives visits from a man on a flying horse has an over-active imagination …….. the list could go on and on ……………

Your ‘god’, like all others, is merely a character in mythology, no more ‘real’ than a Cyclops or a Medusa. The quaran text reveals nothing but the imagination and the existing flawed knowledge of its very human authors.

But even modern embryologists till now give names to different stages of segmentation-gastrulation that depends on the morphology, with different periods of time like morula-blastula-gastrula-neurula….that is disturbing and needs memorising ; while Koran gives only three names for four months : notfa-alaqa-modgha…..when each name describes 40 days…and each chosen name is meaningful : notfa ( semen-zygote….) – alaqa ( clinging – leech-like – clot ….) – modgha ( lump-morsel …)…when the prophet the illiterate explicits to modeste people….with easy way while embryologists teach only graduate students

Not in the modern world.

Human Embryology is clearly explained for ordinary citizens, on the simplified encyclopaedia version of the Doctors’ Medical database, which is available on-line to anyone with a connection.

“Exercise 6: Reproduction and Development”
from “Laboratory Experiments in Biology:
Structure and Function of Organisms”
lab manual written by the University of Texas at Austin Biology DepartmentGrade Level: – High school

@ God exist #66 “…earth is not flat in Koran…..when you say muddy
puddle that is not the word of god…it is said by Dhou lkarnain a
middle age personality mentioned in Koran ..”

Just to elaborate on this, it seems the majority of traditional and modern scholars have identified ‘Dhul-Qarnayn’ as referring to Alexander the Great, who in folklore travelled to the very “ends of the Earth” where the sun sets (wiki).

For example, commentary of the quran by sunni scholar Ibn Kathir (1301–1373 CE) links Christian myths about Alexander to the Dhul-Qarnayn mentioned in the quaran and explains that the verse in question (18:89) is referring to the furthest point that could be travelled west :

“Until, when he reached the setting place of the sun” means “he followed a route until he reached the furthest point that could be reached in the direction of the sun’s setting, which is the west of the earth”. As for the idea of his reaching the place in the sky where the sun sets, this is something impossible, and the tales told by storytellers that he traveled so far to the west that the sun set behind him are not true at all. Most of these stories come from the myths of the People of the Book (Jews and Christians) and the fabrications and lies of their heretics (sic).

Ibn Kathir thus expresses a quaranic notion of an ‘end’ of the presumably flat Earth, differentiated from a supposed “place in the sky” where the sun sets, the “resting place” of the sun.

A similar notion appearts in the islamic hadith literature, eg (al-Bukhari): It is narrated … that the Messenger of Allah one day said: Do you know where the sun goes? They replied: Allah and His Apostle know best. He (the Holy Prophet) observed: Verily it (the sun) glides till it reaches its resting place under the Throne of Allah. Then it falls prostrate and remains there until it is asked: Rise up and go to the place whence you came, and it goes back and continues emerging out from its rising place.

The idea of a spherical Earth appeared in Greek philosophy as early as Pythagoras (6th century BC), and was later taken up by muslim scholars when they began translating Ptolemy’s works. The concept probably resonated more strongly with seafaring cultures than those whose life experience was parochial and land-locked, and the archaic idea retained some traction. The quaranic description of the Earth as ‘spread out’, and the injunction to face a fixed direction as a crucial element of prayer ritual, are further suggestive of a flat Earth mindset.

insulting is a sign of feeble patience….you have to accept other oppinions…when it comes to the meaning of semen-sperm…it is the literal translation who somehow misleads.

I assume you are talking to me God exist, I’m not trying to insult you I’m trying to make a point. Point being a sperm (god would only need one surely) is a very different thing to semen (millions of sperm in seminal fluid). You used the term sperm not semen, now I’m simply clarifying. As no-one at the time The Q’uran was written no-one had any idea that millions of individual sperm swam about in the semen then it is a significant claim if a book at this time makes a claim about exactly what is happening.

The reason this is important is if I am going to be convinced your religion is true then one sure fire method is to show me evidence that what is written in this book is in fact the perfect word of god. Thus far no holy book I have read has done so. I have read the Q’uran and the Bible but nothing I read in there gave any foreknowledge of anything that I would consider remarkable for goat herders in the middle east over 1000 odd years ago. Now if the Q’uran has said something like look at the moment you have no way of seeing this but if you melt sand into glass and use gradually finner grades of sand to make shapes with a curve on either side and look at a drop of water you will see tiny creatures smaller than the eye can see. In fact if you look closer at semen you will see little wriggly creatures with a long tail like a whip and a round head on the end that hold half the information that makes a son or daughter and inside the woman is a tiny egg that contains the other half… I’d be impressed. But it doesn’t that had to wait till 1677 and Leeuwenhoek. Meanwhile modern science does things like make predictions such as the Higgs Boson and black holes and decades latter find these things with exactly the properties predicted by theory. None of the holy books do this to my knowledge and I was merely qualifying that you meant semen and not individual sperm (which would have been impressive) every teenage boy knows about semen though so that is unremarkable.

But even modern embryologists till now give names to different stages of segmentation-gastrulation that depends on the morphology, with different periods of time like morula-blastula-gastrula-neurula….that is disturbing and needs memorising

I think the leech like thing is an okay description of a fetus but it’s not a terrifically good description for a God. Look at the gramma of your answer “even modern embryologists ” the grammar of your responses seems to be saying modern biology is better than Gods own words. Why hasn’t god given a perfect description, why no mention of the Ovum, why no mention of genetics, all things god would know about.

When even well known embryologist had testified that creation in Koran is more accurate than modern knowledge and could not be known in time of revelation even by the most genius rather than by an illiterate who had had no time to study all branches of sciences……https://youtu.be/J_Dllu42eEA ……when you mention that earth was flat until… the Koran has described the periodicity of days and nights in time and space….when he mention that he overlaps days over nights…this is periodicity in space. The word in arabic yukawir is translated to overlap is derived from the noun ball…he overlaps days over nights like a ball….another verset showing the periodicity in space…” And a Sign for them is the Night: We withdraw therefrom the Day, and behold they are plunged in darkness; “…another verset “He draweth the night as a veil o’er the Day. Behold, verily in these things there are signs for those who consider!”….this phenomenon could be seen only from space….in Koran there is no such 5 planets and the earth is not in the centre of universe…you are quoting from the Bible , Torah or the mormon book which had nothing to do with revelation..but the Bible and Torah were once a revelation until they were corrupted and are still being corrupted under demands…and revelation was sealed up with Koran….All other religions are not at all religions ..they are only human thoughts…

I think the point that needs to be made, is that embryology and evolutionary genetics, are not some vague academic notions, where antiquated texts can be substituted, but are basic science education which should be taught in biology lessons to children.
Even at primary school level, the hatching of frogs eggs and transition through the tadpole stages of development – to frogs, can be studied to give an insight into these processes. Similarly caterpillars maturing to insects, go through similar stages reflective of their earlier evolutionary path.

The chicken experiments @#96 then go into more advanced details, for older children.

.All other religions are not at all religions ..they are only human thoughts…

As I pointed out earlier, religious people seem to be able to recognise the unreality and flaws in all religions except their own.

Atheists do not have this problem!

When even well known embryologist had testified that creation in Koran is more accurate than modern knowledge

Some maverick with some sort of qualifications contradicts (or is claimed to contradict), thousands of expert scientists -this is not evidence of errors in the science – it is usually evidence of the preconceptions of the individual concerned – usually because their rational thinking and learning processes, have been blocked by some ideology or indoctrinated religious dogma!

The description you quoted, is NOT “more accurate” than the medlineplus link I gave you @#95. – It is vague and imprecise.

The descriptions on the doctors’ main medline database for hospital use, gives even more precise details than the medlineplus link which is produced for patients and the general public.

Errors in science are identified by objective observations, measurements, and experimental testing, with up-dated corrections being part of the scientific process.

none of what you mention here is remarkable even for the time Eratosthenes discovered not only that the earth was a sphere but gave the measurement of its circumference within a couple of percent of the correct answer and that was in 500 BC long before Islam. The Q’uran couldn’t even re-state what was known eons before the religion.

Comparative anatomy in animals for slaughter could easily have given evidence of what happened in womb at the time of the Q’uran as could miscarriages. Women miscarrying at different number of weeks after sex would give ample evidence the state of fetus development without the need of a deity. The people at the time were uneducated but not stupid and women who were still virgins would not be aborting fetus’s thus it is not remarkable that women would be reporting seeing different stages as you describe.

Had a bit of a look at your embryologist, sorry throughly unconvincing he is merely doing what you are making an assertion that what is vague in the Q’uran means something specific when it clearly doesn’t go into this level of detail. This is not convincing in the slightest. Please show me a passage that is a clear as any decent scientific discovery. If you bother to read the text in any scientific paper it is precise to the level of hurting your brain, you often quickly realise the figures given require you not only to understand how to read numbers but what the specific form of statistical analysis requires, numbers are usually given with error bars to define just how precisely they can know the figures. Now apparently this is beyond the creator of the universe and author of the most perfect book every written.

Through millions of years of evolution, the fact that people knew that putting this in here will produce this, a baby, would have been obvious. Guessing what happened with sperm and the like sounds just like the passages Ge keeps posting. People were ignorant but not stupid. Even a shrimp would be able to work it out to the detail, lack of, described in the koran. And day following night…. what a claim for god. Clever old soul lol.

When I mention only human thoughts ….If there is a message from God …It must be unique…and there is no god but him…Koran : “For We had certainly sent unto them a Book, based on knowledge, which We explained in detail,- a guide and a mercy to all who believe. ” Koran about Noah: “We sent Noah to his people. He said: “O my people! worship Allah! ye have no other god but Him. I fear for you the punishment of a dreadful day! ”
Koran about Hud : ” To the ‘Ad people, (We sent) Hud, one of their (own) brethren: He said: O my people! worship Allah! ye have no other god but Him will ye not fear (Allah)?”
Koran about Salih : “To the Thamud people (We sent) Salih, one of their own brethren: He said: “O my people! worship Allah: ye have no other god but Him. Now hath come unto you a clear (Sign) from your Lord! This she-camel of Allah is a Sign unto you: So leave her to graze in Allah’s earth, and let her come to no harm, or ye shall be seized with a grievous punishment. ” all messengers had the same message and were obliged to transmit it….all messengers from Adam to Moise -Jesus-Mohamed……had to convey the same one message…. koran : ” (5:17) In blasphemy indeed are those that say that Allah is Christ the son of Mary. Say: “Who then hath the least power against Allah, if His will were to destroy Christ the son of Mary, his mother, and all every – one that is on the earth? For to Allah belongeth the dominion of the heavens and the earth, and all that is between. He createth what He pleaseth. For Allah hath power over all things.”.. Koran is not a scientific book but a book describing why we are here …for a purpose…

Man “It’s not perfect, why didn’t you tell us that stars are suns but far away?”

God “I’ve given you the perfect book and if you don’t believe it I’ll send you to hell and make you drink boiling water and burn your skin off for eternity”

Can you not see you are just quote verses at us there is zero evidence. Carl Sagan used to say (and I quote him not because I see him as an authority figure – he would be against that but because this statement makes sense) “Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence”. Neither you or the Q’uran are providing even ordinary evidence. Your job if you wish to convince me that this book of yours is true (because like the bible there is some nasty stuff in there so it is not appealing) is to give me some reason to believe it was in fact written by God. You cannot appeal to the Q’uran telling you so for this, do you understand why? Every holy book makes these claims, from the Bible to the Book of Mormon. How am I to prove one is the true word of god and the others are not.

What technique, logic or unique type of evidence is presented in the Q’uran that is not used in exactly the same way in the Old and New Testaments, the Book of Mormon and every other holy book every written?

Your quoting the Q’uran at us well if I quote the Book of Mormon at you why would you not change religion to Mormonism? I’m not rejecting any religion I just have not been given any convincing evidence for any to be true.

Koran is not a scientific book but a book describing why we are here …for a purpose…

Why bother if you cannot get it right. God could have proven certainty convincingly enough for me that he was either supernatural or a time traveler or an advanced Alien but certainly beyond the understanding of goat herders from the ancient world if he had said anything substantial and clear on any subject not known in those times. He does not even succeed in reaching the heights of ancient Greek thinkers hundreds of Years before his scribe was born. So what purpose does he serve by establishing in this perfect book that he doesn’t know what he is talking about?

Have you considered the possibility that it is not god who wrote the Q’uran but Satan? Perhaps Satan is trying to deceive you into believing nonsense. Maybe one of the other religions is right. The Quakers, Catholics, Jews, Hindi’s, Buddists, Zoroastrians or Scientologists make equally convincing arguments how should I tell them apart from the Q’uran? Should god not want you to be using the brain he gave you to think critically?

When as a young Mormon I realized that the Book of Mormon in my lifetime was being changed on a regular basis – in-spite of Joseph Smith claiming he had not been allowed to translate from the gold tablets a word of reformed Egyptian until the last word was correctly translated I was left with no choice but to consider either 1) Smith was a fraud – and therefore the whole foundation of the religion must be wrong 2) the current Administration in charge of the church must be evil or 3) It was all nonsense. It took about 60 seconds but I chose 3 and then eventually 1 and 2 also when I found out more. If your soul is really at stake you need to consider the alternative – your holy book is wrong. You have been presented here with ample evidence that even any high school biology book can refute and yet you keep quoting the Q’uran at us. It’s not a reliable book. Please tell us why you think anyone should believe any of this?

When I mention only human thoughts ….
If there is a message from God …It must be unique…

. . . and it is unique to the version in the mind of every believer of every religion – unless their version is an indoctrinated copy of one memetically passed on from someone else. – Even then – like DNA, many of the copies are imperfect, and therefore this leads to the branching denominations and sects of religions as generations pass, and as time goes on!
Each believer and sect, asserts that their’s is the “true” version, and the others are mistaken or “heretical”!

and there is no god but him…Koran :

. . . . in the minds of the deeply indoctrinated followers of the Koran.

BUT:- Unsurprisingly, there is no “true God, but Him in the Torah, or Him in the Bible, or Him in the Trinity of Christian gods, or in the incarnations of Lord Vishnu in the trinity of Hindu gods, in the god-delusions in the minds of their followers! – (although the Hindus do have rather a lot of minor subsidiary deities – rather like the Canaanite precursors of the Abrahamic gods).

Koran is not a scientific book but a book describing why we are here …for a purpose…

. . . . . and like other religions, its purpose is replicating and spreading that particular religion.

However, that physical universe shows no signs of purposes related to gods or men. In fact 99.999999999999999999999999999%+ of its galaxies, are so remote, as to have no influence at all on human populations.

Evolution also shows no purposes related to humans.
It just shows reactions which facilitate chemical replications producing living organisms – some of which continue as chain reactions, and some which come to a dead-end in extinctions!

Had a bit of a look at your embryologist, sorry throughly unconvincing he is merely doing what you are making an assertion that what is vague in the Q’uran means something specific when it clearly doesn’t go into this level of detail.

There is also an educational problem, that if you google comparative embryology, a whole load of wilfully misleading YEC pseudo-science and science denial, comes up in the list.
Their favourites seem to be “authoritative” delusional posers, with pseudo-refutations of century old drawings which have minor inaccuracies, while studiously ignoring modern photographic evidence!

Personally I like the examples of frogs and fish, as in these Vertebrates, there is a range of internal and external fertilisation, egg-laying and an assortment of mechanisms of live births – showing the diverse exploratory branches of the development of evolutionary mechanisms.

@#113 – Personally I like the examples of frogs and fish,
as in these Vertebrates, there is a range of internal and external fertilisation,
egg-laying and an assortment of mechanisms of live births –
showing the diverse exploratory branches of the development of evolutionary mechanisms.

Of course creationist pseudo-science and science denial, is frequently confined to a confused understanding of exclusively human embryology!

Terrestrial or arboreal eggs (not in water) Eggs on ground, on rocks, or in burrows
Mode 17: Eggs and early tadpoles in excavated nests; subsequent to flooding, exotrophic tadpoles in ponds or streams.
Mode 18: Eggs on ground or rock above water; upon hatching, exotrophic tadpoles move to water (Phrynomedusa appendic-
ulata, Phrynomedusa marginata, Paratelmatobius poecilogaster).
* Mode 19: Eggs on humid rocks, in rock crevices, or on tree roots above water; exotrophic semiterrestrial tadpoles living on
rocks and rock crevices in a water film or in the water–land interface (several species in the genera Cycloramphus and
Thoropa; Lutz 1947, Wassersug and Heyer 1983).
Mode 20: Eggs hatching into exotrophic tadpoles that are carried to water by adult (Colostethus).

When I said Koran is not a scientific book I meant that not all what it contains is about sciences to give all details needed….but when it cites a scientific revelation ..it is short and very meaningful….at the point when a word is revealed …it has many meanings and all meanings are complementary ….and no other word in the dictionary could substitute for it…..as a guidance book it concentrates about how man was created and for what purpose…and how will God finish up this world as it is…..and especially what will be after death…..and telling how peoples had reacted with their messengers an how will they react…giving all types of mankind…..

These are certainly involved in the genetics of cloning and the culturing of replacement organs for transplants,

I would say there are some aspects of embryology that can be understood by children

The educational aspects are that children should be prepared with courses in modern biology, (#96, #113) so they will understand these issues as informed citizens, (rather than indoctrinated ignorants), and that those who want to do higher course leading to a career in the biological and medical sciences, have a good basic grounding in up-to-date information.

Even if you pretend opponents to all religions and having no beliefs ; the last revelation places you with them in the same side…. of unbelievers…. Christians and jews are unbelievers because they follow corrupted books that was sent originally to one tribu not the them…who reject all religions is an unbeliever …. and surely followers of other thoughts ( religions ) are unbelievers , because they were never sent by God…. Quran : ” (3:85) And whosoever seeks a faith other than Islam (- complete submission to the will of God,) it will never be accepted from him, and he shall be of the losers in the Hereafter. ” .. All messengers had submitted to the will of God.. example of Ibrahim : Quran : ” he said: “O my people! I am indeed free from all that you join as partners in worship with Allah. Verily, I have turned my face…,” example of the queen of sheba with Solomon : Quran : ” My Lord! Lo! I have wronged myself, and I surrender with Solomon unto Allah, the Lord of the Worlds.” Even who do not care about religions rejecting the message of God and lives his life indifferently… He is unbelievers… Quran : “(45:23) Have you seen him who takes his own lust (vain desires) as his ilah (god), and Allah knowing (him as such), left him astray, and sealed his hearing and his heart, and put a cover on his sight. Who then will guide him after Allah? Will you not then remember? ”

.in Koran there is no such 5 planets and the earth is not in the
centre of universe

You are plain wrong here, my boy. From surah 65:12 ” Allah it is who hath created seven heavens, and of the earth the like thereof. ”

Until the 14th century, the ancient pre-Copernican concept of the universe was geocentric, i.e. they thought that the Earth was flat and was located at the center of the universe. They believed that the Sun and the Moon along with Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus and Mercury that made the seven known objects of the heaven had holy significance. These were the only objects people could observe with their naked eyes moving in the sky while the stars appeared to be fixed.

They believed that these planets each had its own ‘sphere’. These layers are not the same as the orbits that we know today. The planets did not orbit the Sun but they all revolved around the flat Earth in a fixed order. The closest to the Earth was the Moon and the farthest was Saturn. Therefore the concept of the 7 layers of heaven is based on ancient astronomy, where each celestial body occupied a sphere one placed on top of the other like layers of an onion. Not only Heaven had seven layers, the Earth also had seven layers and it represented the underworld or Hell.

Both Judaism and Christianity also make reference to these ‘layers’ of heaven. It is hardly surprising that the quaran copied the idea, as it copied much else and of course the quaran’s authors had no further astronomical knowledge to add.

Your denial doesn’t alter the facts, God exists. You need to read some more books.

We are all individuals here with individual concerns. It would be very helpful to indicate whose concerns you are addressing. It is often helpful to include a little quote from them too.

So is #119

Even if you pretend opponents to all religions and having no beliefs ; the last revelation places you with them in the same side…. of unbelievers….

directed at me when I claimed I thought myself as possessing no beliefs as such?

Might I say, anyway, that I have no complaint about religion IF it does not hold rigidly to any moral dogma and is eager to learn of new harms to folk and embrace them as they would their own, and that it respects children enough to only teach them with corroborated truths and maximise their opportunities to freely chose as adults. I have met Jews, Christians and Muslims, happy to call themselves these things, also able to act morally in these important ways.

Here is the news, God exists. After death is the same for all living organisms. They cease to exist. At least with their larger brains your relatives will remember you. That is all.
Why worry … you won’t be there, because there is no “you” any more. That all disappears when your brain dies.

The ‘afterlife’ is but a fantasy invented by the early Greek Orphics and mirrored in the culture of the ancient Egyptians.

because they follow corrupted books that was sent originally to one tribu not the them…who reject all religions is an unbeliever …. and surely followers of other thoughts ( religions ) are unbelievers , because they were never sent by God…. Quran : ” (3:85)

Just because this is written in Quaranic folk-law does not make it any more evidence-based than other folk-law!

And whosoever seeks a faith other than Islam (- complete submission to the will of God,) it will never be accepted from him,

I’m sure your indoctrinated god-delusion in your brain tells you this as you submit to it, but that only proves that YOU believe it: – not that it is actually so!

and he shall be of the losers in the Hereafter. ”

Ah! That fairytale “hereafter”, which is allegedly the reward or punishment for a life of the “right or wrong kind” of servitude!

Many scientifically educated people on this site are confident that humans – just like the other mammals, reptiles amphibians, arthropods, plants, fungi and bacteria, which have lived on the Earth for millions of years, don’t have an “afterlife in anybody’s version of a “hereafter”!

“Hereafters” are stories told to frighten or bribe children – and those frightened of facing up to eventual death, – into becoming the manipulated mind slaves of preachers, priests and imams!

Anyway as you seem preoccupied with Arabic – here is a book which explains a lot of details and the basic psychology.

…. and of the earth the like thereof. ” do not means solar planets…but other earth-like planets created by God with other creatures and when God wills we could meet .. Quran : ” And among His Signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the living creatures that He has scattered through them: and He has power to gather them together when He wills.”……. in these earth -like the command of the almighty descends….Quran : ” Allah is He Who created seven Firmaments and of the earth a similar number. Through the midst of them (all) descends His Command: that ye may know that Allah has power over all things, and that Allah comprehends, all things in (His) Knowledge.”

His Command: that ye may know that Allah has power over all things, and that Allah comprehends, all things in (His) Knowledge.”

Yep! – God-delusions demand that everyone recognises them as all comprehending and all powerful – BUT outside the controlled minds and actions of their followers, they are not even detectable as having any effects at all in the real material universe! The universe works as if they weren’t there at all! Perhaps there is a reason for that!

because they follow corrupted books that was sent originally to one tribu not the them…who reject all religions is an unbeliever …. and surely followers of other thoughts ( religions ) are unbelievers , because they were never sent by God…. Alan4 discussion that is not the translation of Quran ..that is only my writing of I have comprehend ..the verset comes after the word Quran :

The only reason you find the words convincing is because you are already convinced.

To believe that something is true simply because it says so in the Koran, you have to have already accepted that everything in the Koran is true. Can you see that?

For people like us, who do not accept that everything in the Koran is true, quoting from it cannot possibly convince us – because we don’t accept that it’s true. Please read that again, because it’s absolutely crucial that you understand it if you are to have any hope of persuading us.

Somehow, you’re going to have to break out of your mental bubble and try to truly grasp that, for us, the Koran carries no weight whatsoever. It’s just another book. It doesn’t matter how often you tell us it’s a divine book – we don’t believe that. If you want to persuade us, you’re going to have to find things that we find persuasive. Quotes from the Koran aren’t going to do it.

But the Koran is literally all you’ve got, isn’t it?

Doesn’t that worry you at all? That there’s no supporting evidence from the real world at all? Humans have been inventing religions for as long as there have been humans. What if you’ve been conned? What if the whole story was just made up? What if it was written by someone who was hallucinating? What if it’s just become more and more rooted in your culture through continual re-telling over the centuries, but the original text … just wasn’t true? Without supporting evidence from outside your religion, how could you possibly know?

Whatever you do, please do not reply to this post with a quote from the Koran or a mere restatement of your beliefs. If you want to persuade us, you’re going to have to start talking our language, and using things that we, not you, find persuasive.

Your statement chimes well with what was pointed out in the article linked by Olgun (130) :

…..though many Muslims appreciate technology and respect the role that science plays in its creation, there is a great deal of Islamic pseudoscience attempting to reconcile this respect with other respected religious beliefs.

…… the motivation to read modern scientific truths into holy books is also stronger for Muslims than Christians, because true criticism of the quaran is almost non-existent in the Muslim world. While Christianity is less prone to see its Holy Book as the direct word of god, fewer Muslims will compromise on this idea – causing them to believe that scientific truths simply must appear in the quaran.

What we are seeing from Godexist here is the tragic result of this mindset.

To give prejudges about religion before deeply scrutinizing messengers lives ….it is a precipitation…What was really Ibrahim , Jacob , Joseph , David , Solomon , Moise , Jesus and Mohamed….The human elite…Only if you think that these personality had never existed….

There is some historical evidence for the existence of David , Solomon , Jesus and Mohamed.

There is no conclusive evidence that Abraham, Jacob, Joseph and Moses were anything other than legendary figures based on oral traditions handed down among the early Hebrews.

In any case whether these characters from early middle-eastern mythology lived or not matters no more to rational human beings than the adventures of Hercules.

Much of the early ‘history’ of the Israelites related in the ‘books of Moses’ has been shown by modern independent historical and archaelogical research to be legend. By regurgitating it in the quaran, the quaran’s authors unwittingly destroy their own credibility as representing anything other than fiction.

Yes. I’ve noticed before that they set the bar for their god’s knowledge very low.

The Koran contains something vague and non-startling about something in the natural world, knowledge that would not have been remotely difficult to come by, and they try to claim it as divine revelation of something later discovered by science.

Considering that all religions claim limitless knowledge on the part of their creator gods, you might think they’d demand rather more evidence of it than something that would have been entirely knowable at the time, even without divine revelation. “Ah, but the Koran expresses it in a form that could be understood by common people at the time,” they say. “Funny, that,” I say.

If they existed as real people, rather than just heroes in stories, – it was probably as leaders of small tribal groups of people.
There is no reason to believe that they had any special qualities or wisdom.
Flattery of powerful leaders is a well known way for scribes to keep their jobs and keep their heads!

Only if you think that these personality had never existed….

We really don’t know if they existed or not.
The ancient Greeks had stories of heroes, who also may or may not have existed, but even with their advanced culture for the age they lived in, the wildly exaggerated and supernatural claims in those Greek myths, though entertaining, are not credible.

The traditions of revamping stories continues today – with some Americans needing to be reminded that Hollywood versions of events, are stories – NOT history!

Considering that all religions claim limitless knowledge on the part of their creator gods, . . . . .

But we must remember that “God-did-it” is the universal gap plugger to cover over ignorance, and that the extent of the ignorance in some theocratic cultures which promote pseudo-knowledge, IS almost limitless!

But one they’re strangely willing to allow their respective gods to get away with too.

Imagine how easy it would be for an all-powerful, all-knowing creator to astound us with his/her/its knowledge. Yet what do we get …? The kind of observation of the natural world that could be made by any drunk who hadn’t yet passed out completely.

I had read more than 100 scientific magazines that are still in my biblio…I read scientific topics with six languages… I am so convinced that sciences is serving religion….True religion masters confirmed sciences….When you advice me about a non convincible book…..I will tell you how one of my favourite figures , the messengers , Ibrahim responds his people , when refusing many evidences he gives to them, with a response touching their hearts…you are arguing me about God ..who had taken me to his pathway….

There are many pathways to religion, Ge, that require no supernatural elements for their explanation. Here are some for starters:

Indoctrination, usually as a child
Fear of death, exploited by those who tell childish stories of eternal reward vs eternal punishment
A sense of comfort and reassurance from the notion that everything that happens in this scary, unpredictable world is ultimately in the hands of an all-powerful, well-meaning god with a plan for you
The desire to belong, in a community bound together by religious belief and ritual.

Remember: Christians, Jews, Hindus and others are just as certain that their god(s) led them to their pathways. Yet you have no difficulty in recognising that they are mistaken.

In the early and middle 20th century, leading archaeologists such as William F. Albright and biblical scholars such as Albrecht Alt believed that the patriarchs and matriarchs were either real individuals or believable composites of people who lived in the “patriarchal age”, the 2nd millennium BCE. But, in the 1970s, new arguments concerning Israel’s past and the biblical texts challenged these views; these arguments can be found in Thomas L. Thompson’s The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives (1974), and John Van Seters’ Abraham in History and Tradition (1975). Thompson, a literary scholar, based his argument on archaeology and ancient texts. His thesis centered on the lack of compelling evidence that the patriarchs lived in the 2nd millennium BCE, and noted how certain biblical texts reflected first millennium conditions and concerns. Van Seters examined the patriarchal stories and argued that their names, social milieu, and messages strongly suggested that they were Iron Age creations. By the beginning of the 21st century, archaeologists had given up hope of recovering any context that would make Abraham, Isaac or Jacob credible historical figures.

And that is because you are approaching the subject with blind prejudice. You take your religious preconception, indoctrinated no doubt from early childhood, and try desperately to force a superficial grasp of scientific knowledge to conform to it. We see the same thing played out on any number of islamic websites, and it is tragic, as another person remarked here earlier, that so much of the islamic world is so crippled by its inability accomodate the necessary criticism of its core beliefs/fantasies that would enable it to be a useful part of our modern information age.

There is also an educational problem, that if you google comparative embryology, a whole load of wilfully misleading YEC pseudo-science and science denial, comes up in the list.

Fair point Alan, was just trying to go where he was leading, for example who would ancient people understand this things like animals the slaughtered and miscarriages would give smart people the ability to work out much without even dissecting a human.

“would ancient people understand this things like animals the
slaughtered and miscarriages would give smart people the ability to
work out much without even dissecting a human.”

The only thing I’d say to that is there was a long held misconception that the human being was some kind of ‘special creation’ and therefore the ancient peoples were less inclined to draw exact conclusions between dismembered animals and human function.

I had read more than 100 scientific magazines that are still in my biblio…I read scientific topics with six languages…

. . . and yet when I give you links to articles on well established modern science, or challenge some of your claims – no credible response on those scientific topics is forthcoming!

Perhaps you could name those magazines, so we can check if they are publishing peer-reviewed science or are just misleading creationist opinions which their authors claim are science!

I am so convinced that sciences is serving religion….True religion masters confirmed sciences…

Perhaps you could give examples FROM SCIENCE PAPERS which show this. Anyone with delusions and uncritical thinking processes from preconceptions, can convince themselves.
All you have produced so far is quotes from the Koran, which you assert explain some details of science, when for the most part they are simple observations or revamped notions from earlier civilisations – with many refuted by modern science.

. . . . . As on the topic of this discussion – the science of EVOLUTION and genetics, on which, you are yet to demonstrate any understanding of its mechanisms.

@ God exist #141 ….”True religion”…. Friend, that is nothing but
an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms.

Just to assure you that I am not merely being flippant, my point is that there are numerous World religions, all with claims to a ‘truth’, but presenting divergent and contradictory versions of this ‘truth’.

There is no independent arbiter here, no giant finger pointing down from the sky to say: ” This is what I really meant”. The plain fact is , they can’t all be true, so by presenting a multiplicity of conflicting unverifiable visions, we can only logically conclude they are all equally wrong.

You may call upon your personal experience to claim a ‘True Religion’, but that is merely special pleading resulting from your cultural conditioning. It has no more significance than a Manchester United supporter claiming that his team is ‘the greatest’.

Can I mirror what Phil suggested and you use either out names if you are responding to us or copy and paste direct quotes from us so we can all follow the tread. You can do this by putting the > symbol directly in front of the bit you have pasted. This way we know who you are directly responding to and what comment you are responding to. I prefer this method as it saves people scrolling up the page to find the comment.

but when it cites a scientific revelation ..it is short and very meaningful….at the point when a word is revealed …it has many meanings and all meanings are complementary ….and no other word in the dictionary could substitute for it

See what I did there? Now everyone knows which bit I’m addressing. I’m not being rude or angry with you just hoping we can make this easier to follow.

On to my point. What it cites is not scientific revelation as I have pointed out it can’t even get right what science had already discovered many hundreds of years before the Q’uran! Science writing has to be very clear and you use many words to outline exactly what you mean so that you cannot make multiple interpretations.

So for example if the Q’uran says that fresh and salt water don’t mix then that is a scientific claim, one I can test in my kitchen and find that no this is not true they do mix” So if we were now to get into a debate about the meaning and you say “No Allah was not really saying that salt water and fresh water don’t mix…” you have clearly demonstrated that not only is it not a scientific book but it is just plain inaccurate and open to multiple interpretations. A good scientific paper is not open to interpretation it may be almost impossible to read by someone without an education in the field but misinterpretation is minimized. That God cannot do better proves that this book is either man made or made by an incompetent god no more literate than his scribe or that it is in fact Satan writing it in the hope of misleading you – you need to consider how you know this is not a possibility, you cannot just take the Q’urans word for it.

Even if you pretend opponents to all religions and having no beliefs ; the last revelation places you with them in the same side…. of unbelievers…. Christians and jews are unbelievers because they follow corrupted books that was sent originally to one tribu not the them…who reject all religions is an unbeliever …. and surely followers of other thoughts ( religions ) are unbelievers , because they were never sent by God…. Quran : ” (3:85) And whosoever seeks a faith other than Islam (- complete submission to the will of God,) it will never be accepted from him, and he shall be of the losers in the Hereafter. ”

So here is the usual threat of Hell, nice. As to the other religions what you are doing here is just saying “my books says all the other books are wrong and if you don’t believe me you can all burn in hell”. The problem with all religions is they present assertions as proof. You need to go beyond and start at first principles. I have been presented with 1000’s of competing beliefs, how can I tell the validity of any of them. You show no ability to criticism any of them least of all your own. I have read the Q’uran and the Bible and the Book of Mormon and none of these do any more than make claims they cannot support. Where the Q’uran (and others) make a claim that is testable in reality it is either nonsense or what was or could have been easily derived at the time of its creation. Hardly the perfect book.

To give prejudges about religion before deeply scrutinizing messengers lives ….it is a precipitation…What was really Ibrahim , Jacob , Joseph , David , Solomon , Moise , Jesus and Mohamed….The human elite…Only if you think that these personality had never existed….

The Human Elite? Hardly, a few of these were war lords who slaughters anyone who disagreed with their will, if we are to believe they existed. Jesus had some truly nice things to say but all his talk of hell is as evil a pronouncement and threat as any. But again we see your assumption that these people are really wise or really on the authority of the Q’uran. There have been many people much more worthy of the term human elite who have contributed to our day to day lives Micheal Faraday springs to mind, wonderful, humble man who gave us essentially what was needed for almost every modern device we use today. And he didn’t go about lobbing the heads off anyone who disagreed with him either. And I don’t need to know that people existed for their reported works to be of some use, Socrates may not have ever existed but his method does and that’s what counts. When I read the holy books of these religions I see tribal war leaders demanding submission on pain of death not inspirational at all if looked on from the outside.

But if you want to convince us that what is claimed of them is true you need to go beyond the text can you do this? If not then they can be safely tucked away as just another set of myths like Mercury and Thor or for that matter Superman.

.I will tell you how one of my favourite figures , the messengers , Ibrahim responds his people , when refusing many evidences he gives to them, with a response touching their hearts…you are arguing me about God ..who had taken me to his pathway….

We are not interested in you trying to touch our hearts, my heart is touched by many things and is capable of being touched by many false things. This exact same argument is used to me by Christians to which I respond ” But there are Muslims out there who claim to have their hearts touched in the same way how to do refute them?” They never have an answer only to claim that you are deluded and they have the right “hearts touched feelings” they assume that your feelings are not genuine or that you are in fact having your heart touched by Satan. I’m not inside you head or heart and can only take your word that you really really believe this strongly. That’s fine but every other religion claims the same and they cannot all be right so how (without saying because the Q’uran tells me so) can you establish that you feelings are grounded on anything more substantial than feelings how can you provide us with evidence.

And that is because you are approaching the subject with blind prejudice.
You take your religious preconception, indoctrinated no doubt from early childhood, and try desperately to force a superficial grasp of scientific knowledge to conform to it.

Yet – strangely this sort of detail of multiple generations of Vertebrate ancestry on the link below, seems to be absent in the creation stories of Adam and humans in general!

The common ancestor of all those different organisms (ray-fins, coelacanths, lungfishes, tetrapods, etc.) was neither a lobe-fin nor a ray-fin.
This ancient vertebrate lineage had fins (with lepidotrichia), scales, gills, and lived in the water. Yet they also had air bladders (air-filled sacs) connected to the back of their throats that could be used for breathing air (i.e., as lungs) or for buoyancy control.
The air bladders of many ray-fins no longer connect to their throats, and so they are not able to breathe air. In these ray-fins, the air bladder is used mainly for buoyancy control and is known as a swim bladder.
By contrast, tetrapods have taken an alternative route: they have lost the buoyancy control function of their air bladders, and instead this organ been elaborated to form the lungs that we all use to get around on land.

When we get past coelacanths and lungfishes on the evogram, we find a series of fossil forms that lived between about 390 and 360 million years ago during the Devonian Period.
During this interval, this lineage of fleshy-finned organisms moved from the water to the land. Many parts of the skeleton changed as new innovations that permitted life on land evolved.

The only thing I’d say to that is there was a long held misconception that the human being was some kind of ‘special creation’ and therefore the ancient peoples were less inclined to draw exact conclusions between dismembered animals and human function.

This may be true, but you also have to remember they did not exist in a complete cultural vacuum for example they would have been exposed to some of the belief of the ancient Greeks this was discussed before in relation to Q’uran following the then current understanding of astronomy to some extent. Thus I’m not suggesting that Mohamed was questioning women about miscarriages but that he would have been exposed to the views that had been built up over time. That theories of development may well have been derived from slaughtering animals and miscarriage. My sister once suffered a miscarriage and described to me what she saw (tragic for her) and this would have been a common event doing the maths – she started having sex after her marriage her miscarriage was 40 days after her wedding etc. All of this could be knowledge build up over many generations that could have given the ancient people a time-line and developmental pregnant women often were cut open in battle again you’d see different levels of development. We often forget in the the times before we had ultrasound and allowed dissection that these people were as curious as us and directly were involved in both the slaughter of animals and the health care of the people of the village, in todays world in the west we are kept away from death and health care. So it does not surprise me at all that they would have observed the development of other animals from Tadpoles as Alan suggests to goats and cattle to the people around them.

So for example if the Q’uran says that fresh and salt water don’t mix then that is a scientific claim, one I can test in my kitchen and find that no this is not true they do mix”

All parties need to be careful to define clearly what is being claimed here!

You can stir salt water and fresh water together in your kitchen, but when dealing with LARGE bodies of water in nature salt water and fresh water DON’T MIX QUICKLY.
There is extensive science published on HALOCLINES and THERMOCLINES as I pointed out in this earlier discussion:-

There is another aspect of the quaran’s clear human origins, quite apart from its bogus ‘science’ content laid out here, which also seems to pass believers by.

As in surah 4.11, 4.12 , which cover inheritance laws, apparently straight from the mind of ‘allah’, for example :
“...if a man or woman’s substance be inherited by a distant relation,
and he or she have a brother or sister; each of them two shall have a sixth
part of the estate. But if there be more than this number, they shall be
equal sharers in a third part, after payment of the legacies which shall be
bequeathed, and the debts, without prejudice to the heirs. This is an ordinance
from god…” &c.

This is obviously nothing more than the politicised reform of prior arrangements within the local Meccan/Medinese community, likely motivated by a desire to prevent the transfer of muslim wealth and property to non-muslims.

The utter banality of the ‘creator’ of this vast Universe involving itself in the minutiae of such matters needs no further comment.

Alan. If you remember a more recent conversation on this salt/fresh water thing, I posted the two Egyptian gods that were these two elements. To me, it sounds more like a health warning rather than a scientific experiment. Not eating pork being of the same life saving advice??

Hi Mods! I have a proposal. Would it be entirely possible, given the propensity of the de-railing of topics ad infinitum, similar to the monthly “Open Discussion” thread, and perhaps a monthly topic is in order in that vein? A “Religion” open discussion forum?

Alan. If you remember a more recent conversation on this salt/fresh water thing, I posted the two Egyptian gods that were these two elements. To me, it sounds more like a health warning rather than a scientific experiment.

It would be a matter of consequence to sailors in hot dry climates. Fresh water remains unmixed and on the surface for considerable distances off the estuaries of rivers. This would both provide drinking water and affect the buoyancy of boats. On large rivers like the Amazon or in times of flood, the water is fresh for MILES offshore!

Drinkable ground-water in deserts, often has a significant salt content.

I haven’t I am afraid but I do realise that just saying its a health thing is over simplifying it but the way to sell it to the people. There are many practical things in these books as well. I don’t see it much different to todays problems of bringing people together and pandering to the ordinary folk and those we call warlords these days. Maybe the mistranslation of Ruler’s to god’s and the need for just one. People hedging their bets and adopting other Rulers as well as their own. Intention, mistakes and forced politics all part of the soup.

25:53: And He it is Who has made the two seas to flow freely, the one sweet, very sweet, and the other saltish, bitter. And between the two He has made a barrier and inviolable obstruction.

Alan4discussion is quite right about there being HALOCLINES and THERMOCLINES where the waters can remain separated for some time. I have done this with my science classes with salty dyed water. My problem with the Q’uran is of course the “He has made a barrier and inviolable obstruction.” clearly it is not an inviolable obstruction. The problem with religious texts is the making of absolute claims and absolute statements about the interpretation. Once you do this you will end up with debate over different interpretations, translations, what did he mean in context. All of this is avoided by being clear and defining your terms as is done in an scientific paper. That god could not see that this perfect book would lead to different interpretations which could have been made clearer makes this very much a book of its time.

Alan4discussion is also right about the buoyancy of boats were you should drink water from etc. This all makes sense as a local religion in which this is useful advice locally. It does not however tell us anything that others at the time would have failed to notice.

Trichinella spiralis is an ovoviviparous[1] nematode parasite, occurring in rodents, pigs, horses, bears, and humans, and is responsible for the disease trichinosis. It is sometimes referred to as the “pork worm” due to it being typically encountered in undercooked pork products.

I think along a similar line to the ‘handy tips and hints’ that religious texts often offer are things like the hang ups on sexuality by all the Abrahamic religions compared to say many of the Polynesian groups that Europeans encountered were sex was less hung up and virginity was not apparently so obsessed over.

I suspect (although it is just speculation) that humans in these regions living in large cities and in close proximity to animals probably accelerated disease transmission and the onslaught of sexually transmitted disease. It would be clear when all of the brothels and all of the people using them were suddenly infected it would be easy to put one and two together. This would likely put virginity at a premium – hence marrying pre-pubesent girls as a means of sexual hygiene. And given the levels of superstition it’s understandable that this is seen as a punishment from god and a judgment about the evils of sexual promiscuity. Not great for the girls of course or the wives affected by adulterous husband (or visa versa) but understandable particularly when there was no cure and these conditions often led to death.

By contrast in island nations quarantined from the rest of the world a) there would have been less of these diseases and b) if one showed up it probably decimated the whole Island. Our culture is still afflicted by these sexual taboos which once served a valid purpose.

My problem with the Q’uran is of course the
“He has made a barrier and inviolable obstruction.”
clearly it is not an inviolable obstruction.
The problem with religious texts is the making of absolute claims and absolute statements about the interpretation.

There is the additional problem of those who live in their little Quranic bubble, without outside studies, have no understanding of the science on which the basic observations are based, or of the actual phenomena which are being referred to, so are impressed with the “magical insight” which is actually a hyped absolutist recording of a simple observation!

Olgun (162), Chris Hitchens points out that other communities of the same epoch, as proved by archaeological finds, were not averse to consuming pigs. Trichinosis was no more a deal-breaker than contaminated water would have been. He further suggests that there may have been an anthropomorphic motivation: the sight and smell of pig, and of burnt pig, when compared to human, and a turning away from burnt offerings too closely reminiscent of a distant pagan past involving human sacrifice – of which the distasteful Abraham & Isaac myth is clearly symbolic.

Reckless (165) << This would likely put virginity at a premium – hence marrying pre-pubesent girls as a means of sexual hygiene.>>

I think there might be a more sociological explanation: in primitive strictly patriarchical societies where the security of male inheritance was a core principle, it was vital to secure a spouse of proven ‘purity’ so that the authenticity of the first-born male was beyond doubt, both private and public.

I think there might be a more sociological explanation: in primitive strictly patriarchical societies where the security of male inheritance is a core principle, it is important to secure a spouse of proven ‘purity’ so that the authenticity of the first-born male is beyond doubt, both private and public.

Yes that’d be a big factor as well, I don’t mean to suggest this is the only factor, it’s just noteworthy I think that all of the religions around the advent of cities seem to move in this direction where as many societies in smaller isolated villages don’t seem to have the same hang ups about promiscuity. It may be that the advent of SDT’s re-enforced the other factors you suggest or even the other way around. I’d be interested to hear from anyone with a knowledge of pre-abrahamic religions from that area before the cities started to crop up. As I said speculation on my part – so I’m not hanging my hat on it.

Olgun (169)…. There are no statistics there, but it is (mildly) interesting to note how a pork taboo pops up here and there in Middle-Eastern history, often for different reasons. I rather suspect that islam largely copied its dietary law, as it did so much else, verbatim from jewish religious tradition. In hellenised Christianity, of course, there are no such hang-ups, except again for certain sects – no surprise there!

the last revelation places you with them in the same side…. of unbelievers….

There are sound scientific reasons why proclaimed revelations should not be assumed to be “evidence” of any real world phenomena! -. . . . and why critical thinkers should be unbelieving in their claims of material objectivity!

Throughout history, auditory hallucinations have been construed as evidence of communication with divine powers, although contemporary medical models often view them as undesirable and a sign of mental illness.
In psychiatry, auditory hallucinations carry considerable weight in the diagnostic process, so there is a clear need for clinicians to have a greater understanding of the multiple facets of this phenomenon.

Auditory hallucinations are false perceptions of sound.They have been described as the experience of internal words or noises that have no real origin in the outside world and are perceived to be separate from the person’s mental processes.1
Auditory hallucinations have veridical perceptual qualities in the sense that individuals are often convinced of the objective reality of the experience.

It is also possible that surprising observations were claimed to be “revelations”, to add weight and credibility to the statements, and authority to the speaker!

When you do not know whether Ibrahim had existed or no ….waiting for archaeologists to decide for you..when religiously a toddler how could you prejudge religion and its messengers who have had the enormous impact on earth…

salt-fresh water…….I remember when studying environmental sedimentation and ocean carbonate…during struggle between rivers and seas to give estuaries or deltas…. and how salt waters enter under fresh waters of the amazon until 1500 km resulting of flooding fresh waters…from which benefit the surroundings… and how cold waters circulate oceans under hot waters cooling up europe rivages ….and how cold waters are more dense and remain in the bottom 2-4 degrees….

God-exist, we atheists do not prejudge religion and its messengers; we merely ask them to back up their claims with evidence. Since no evidence of any claims about the supernatural has ever been provided that has stood up to rational scrutiny, the most positive conclusion we can come to is that such claims belong to the mythologies elaborated by ancient peoples who lacked the benefits of modern sciences.

Lightning is a sudden electrostatic discharge that occurs typically during a thunderstorm. This discharge occurs between electrically charged regions of a cloud , between two clouds , or between a cloud and the ground…till now meteorologists give a such explanation of charged regions of the atmosphere that discharge in flashes…when Quran says it very clearly that is hail within highly amount of clouds that gives lightning.. Quran : ( He sends down from the skies mountainous masses [of clouds] charged with hail, and He makes it fall on whom He will, and turns it away from whom He pleases. The flash of His lightning may well-nigh take away the sight. (43).) the messenger was not a meteorologists….. https://youtu.be/7WrfcfvTpys

Quran : ( He sends down from the skies mountainous masses [of clouds]
charged with hail, and He makes it fall on whom He will, and turns it
away from whom He pleases. The flash of His lightning may well-nigh
take away the sight. (43).

Ok. So according to you, this is the Koran revealing that sometimes there is heavy cloud and sometimes there is hail and sometimes there is lightning (which is blindingly bright).

Genuine question: Which bit of this do you suppose people at the time had not already noticed for themselves?

waiting for archaeologists to decide for you..when religiously a toddler how could you prejudge religion and its messengers

In the field of Psychology this is what is known as projection. It isn’t the atheists who are prejudiced against these claims. We give the explanations a fair consideration but when they are judged to be improbable we don’t waste an extra second of our time on them.

Someone else, who has been indoctrinated severely as a child with an ancient ideology will have great difficulty entertaining any proposal that violates the rules of their mind virus known as religion.

We see that you are working overtime trying to reconcile modern day science with your ancient ideology, in this case, Islam. We are not operating under this cognitive burden as you are.

This discharge occurs between electrically charged regions of a cloud , between two clouds , or between a cloud and the ground…till now meteorologists give a such explanation of charged regions of the atmosphere that discharge in flashes…

Actually they are VERY specific that it is ice particles (which may be smaller than hail), which cause electrostatic discharges in clouds.

Lightning is an electric current.
To make this electric current, first you need a cloud.

When the ground is hot, it heats the air above it.This warm air rises. As the air rises, water vapour cools and forms a cloud. When air continues to rise, the cloud gets bigger and bigger.
In the tops of the clouds, temperature is below freezing and the water vapour turns into ice.

Now, the cloud becomes a thundercloud. Lots of small bits of ice bump into each other as they move around. All these collisions cause a build up of electrical charge.

Eventually, the whole cloud fills up with electrical charges. Lighter, positively charged particles form at the top of the cloud. Heavier, negatively charged particles sink to the bottom of the cloud.

When the positive and negative charges grow large enough, a giant spark – lightning – occurs between the two charges within the cloud. This is like a static electricity sparks you see, but much bigger.

when Quran says it very clearly that is hail
within highly amount of clouds that gives lightning..

This is unremarkable. Sometimes the hail melts before it reaches the ground. Sometimes it does not. Sometimes the rain evaporates as it is carried upward in the convection currents or when it passes through warmer drier air- so never reaches the ground.

Quran : (He sends down from the skies mountainous masses [of clouds] charged with hail, and He makes it fall on whom He will,

Actually thunder clouds form from hot air RISING not descending – and hail (or rain) falls on whoever happens to be under the cloud. (This is not rocket science!)
.. and lightning can go up, down or sideways!

It is the more complex forms of lightning which require the expertise of meteorologists!

Upper-atmospheric lightning or ionospheric lightning are terms sometimes used by researchers to refer to a family of short-lived electrical-breakdown phenomena that occur well above the altitudes of normal lightning and storm clouds. Upper-atmospheric lightning is believed to be electrically induced forms of luminous plasma. The preferred usage is transient luminous event (TLE), because the various types of electrical-discharge phenomena in the upper atmosphere lack several characteristics of the more familiar tropospheric lightning.

There are several types of TLEs, the most common being sprites. Sprites are flashes of bright red light that occur above storm systems. C-sprites (short for “columniform sprites”) is the name given to vertical columns of red light. C-sprites exhibiting tendrils are sometimes called “carrot sprites”. Other types of TLEs include sprite halos, blue jets, gigantic jets, blue starters, and ELVESs. The acronym ELVES (“Emission of Light and Very Low Frequency perturbations due to Electromagnetic Pulse Sources”) refers to a singular event which is commonly thought of as being plural. TLEs are secondary phenomena that occur in the upper atmosphere in association with underlying thunderstorm lightning.

Now if the Quran had given details of this high altitude lightning which is now observed using cameras – often on aircraft, and satellites, that might have been impressive, – but the simple stuff anyone can observe from the ground or mountain tops, – not so much!

his lightning returns to the word hail. It means that hail who makes the lightning…..

It doesn’t say that at all. It merely has the words hail and lightning in adjacent sentences. In any case it is not hail that creates lightning. It is small ice particles from frozen water vapour which are created inside the cloud. Hail is falling balls of ice which hit the ground – a different thing entirely. Nonetheless it is common to get lightning along with hail storms which early man would have oberved but it does not mean one causes the other. Your desperation to create some sort of predictions of modern science from the primitive gibberish in the Koran is laughable.

In any case the Koran is just a second rate copy of much that is in the bible including this nonsense about hail.

Exodus 9:23 The LORD sent thunder and hail, and lightning flashed down to the ground.

Psalm 78:48 He gave over their cattle to the hail, their livestock to bolts of lightning.

Godexist – you have no scientific or rational integrity. You even have to misrepresent the words you quote to try and twist them into some sort of scientific prediction.

salt-fresh water…….I remember when studying environmental sedimentation and ocean carbonate…during struggle between rivers and seas to give estuaries or deltas…. and how salt waters enter under fresh waters

These are simple observations which were discussed @#154, #161, and #167, looking at the science of haloclines.

and how salt waters enter under fresh waters of the amazon until 1500 km resulting of flooding fresh waters…from which benefit the surroundings…

There is a tidal bore on the Amazon – which is often shown on an educational video or to surfers. I think the travel was 800km rather than 1500km.

Godexist – you have no scientific or rational integrity. You even have
to misrepresent the words you quote to try and twist them into some
sort of scientific prediction.

Yes, we have caught him out on this before. There was a hilarious attempt earlier (#125) to re-cast the quaran’s ancient cosmology model of ‘seven heavens’ as a prediction of inhabited Earth planets in remote galaxies …LOL!

The Antikythera mechanism (/ˌæntɪkɪˈθiːrə/ ANT-i-ki-THEER-ə or /ˌæntɪˈkɪθərə/ ANT-i-KITH-ə-rə) is an ancient Greek analog computer[1][2][3][4] and orrery used to predict astronomical positions and eclipses for calendar and astrological purposes.[5][6][7] It could also track the four-year cycle of athletic games which was similar to an Olympiad, the cycle of the ancient Olympic Games.

“I have a poor understanding of this science THEREFORE god-did-it,” is not a credible argument when discussing ancient or modern observations of the workings of nature!

The more advanced thinkers in advanced ancient civilisations had
considerable knowledge, and certainly were not stupid even though they
had some mistaken conceptions and lacked modern technologies! The
Greeks had highly skilled mathematicians, had fleets of ships, had
skilled metal workers, could make detailed drawings and diagrams, and
even invented astronomical mechanical computers!

One thing for certain, is that the Greeks would have rightly scoffed at the sheer absurdity of the mythical shipbuilding prowess attributed to the legendary ‘Noah’. And yet the quaran’s authors in their pious naivety continued to peddle this fantasy to credulous believers, copying it into surah 11 and unwittingly providing an early example of the well-known aphorism : garbage in, garbage out.

Two key features of a tidal bore are the intense turbulence and turbulent mixing generated during the bore propagation, as well as its rumbling noise.
The visual observations of tidal bores highlight the turbulent nature of the surging waters.
The tidal bore induces a strong turbulent mixing in the estuarine zone, and the effects may be felt along considerable distances.
The velocity observations indicate a rapid deceleration of the flow associated with the passage of the bore as well as large velocity fluctuations.[7][8] A tidal bore creates a powerful roar that combines the sounds caused by the turbulence in the bore front and whelps, entrained air bubbles in the bore roller, sediment erosion beneath the bore front and of the banks, scouring of shoals and bars, and impacts on obstacles.

As with tsunamis, it is the wave which travels a great distance, not the body of the water!

The Amazon stratification of freshwater over saltwater is in the estuaries of the delta and out to sea from the river mouth.

Even if you pretend opponents to all religions and having no beliefs ; the last revelation places you with
them in the same side…. of unbelievers…. Christians and jews are unbelievers because they follow corrupted
books that was sent originally to one tribu not the them…who reject all religions is an unbeliever …. and
surely followers of other thoughts ( religions ) are unbelievers , because they were never sent by God…..

only to clarify that is not Quran....that was only my interpretation... I have to notice that one of you was highly impolite showing how he hates religion and how it affects him even if he pretends getting rid of it.... some how the translation of the meaning dismiss the grammar because from the original verset is easily understood that hail who gives lightening... when I had said inhabited earth-like planets... I have never said in remote galaxies... I had never rejected " seven heavens" which is true also...if you are interested I could show you how the religion sees the universe....

Why do you keep telling us we’re unbelievers? We know that already. We have been telling you! That’s precisely why it just doesn’t matter to us what it says in the Koran.

We also know that you think Christians and Jews are unbelievers too. So what? Why should we care? We think they’re wrong too. There is absolutely no evidence for the claims of Christianity or Judaism, just as there is absolutely no evidence for the claims of Islam.

As for religion affecting us, even though we are non-believers, of course it does. Why shouldn’t it? It affects the real world, it affects the things people like you come here and claim. That doesn’t make it true!

when I had said inhabited earth-like planets… I have never said in
remote galaxies… I had never rejected ” seven heavens” which is true
also…if you are interested I could show you how the religion sees
the universe.

I took your claim to its obvious conclusion to emphasise its evident absurdity.

‘Seven heavens’ is indeed true – a true account of the ancient cosmological model that is in the quaran because that is all that the quaran’s authors understood. We know how religion sees the universe, and it is a view detached from scientific reality.

Religious people (most of them) seem to think this planet is an experiment. That’s what their beliefs come down to. Some god or other is always fixing and poking, whether it’s messing around with tradesmen’s wives, giving tablets on mountains, commanding parents to mutilate their children, telling people what words they can say and what words they can’t say, making people feel guilty about enjoying themselves, and suchlike. Why can’t these gods leave well alone?
All this intervention actually speaks of incompetence. If god didn’t want Lot’s wife to look back, why didn’t he make her obedient, so she’d do what her husband told her? Or if he hadn’t made Lot such a piece of work, maybe she’d have listened to him more. If god is omnipotent and omniscient, why didn’t he start the Universe out in the first place so it would come out the way he wants? Why is he constantly repairing and complaining?
There’s one thing scripture makes clear: god is a sloppy manufacturer. He’s no good at design and he’s no good at execution. He’d be out of business if there was any competition, and who could have any confidence in any enterprise or business or investment that promises dividends only after the death of the stockholders? Of course selling ‘eternal life’ is an unbeatable scam, with no customers ever able to ask for their money back after the goods are not delivered.

We know how religion sees the universe, and it is a view detached from scientific reality.

It does seem to lack a few credible time-scales and details! 🙂
. . . . .. with Genesis getting various items, and astronomical or geological and evolutionary features in the wrong sequential order!

The current measurement of the age of the universe is 13.799±0.021 billion years within the Lambda-CDM concordance model.[1][2] The uncertainty has been narrowed down to 21 million years, based on a number of projects that all give extremely close figures for the age. These include studies of the microwave background radiation, and measurements by the Planck satellite, the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe and other probes. Measurements of the cosmic background radiation give the cooling time of the universe since the Big Bang,

The Sun is a G-type main-sequence star (G2V) based on its spectral class. As such, it is informally referred to as a yellow dwarf. It formed approximately 4.6 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of matter within a region of a large molecular cloud. Most of this matter gathered in the center, whereas the rest flattened into an orbiting disk that became the Solar System. The central mass became so hot and dense that it eventually initiated nuclear fusion in its core.

The age of the Earth is approximately 4.54 ± 0.05 billion years (4.54 × 10 to the 9th. years ± 1%).[1][2][3][4] This dating is based on evidence from radiometric age-dating of meteorite[5] material and is consistent with the radiometric ages of the oldest-known terrestrial and lunar samples.

Following the development of radiometric age-dating in the early 20th century, measurements of lead in uranium-rich minerals showed that some were in excess of a billion years old.[6] The oldest such minerals analyzed to date—small crystals of zircon from the Jack Hills of Western Australia—are at least 4.404 billion years old.[7][8][9] Calcium–aluminium-rich inclusions—the oldest known solid constituents within meteorites that are formed within the Solar System—are 4.567 billion years old,[10][11] giving a lower limit for the age of the solar system.
(Wikipedia)

A specious claim by the book’s own authors, but a useful marketing tool !

The problem with confused fundamentalists like ‘God exists’ is that they fundamentally misunderstand the role of religious scripture. There may be moral guidance to be gained from it, although in some other forum I am sure we could dismantle much of it. However, the desperate attempts we have seen here to validate a belief system by inventing false equivalences to later human developments in the Sciences reveals a deep insecurity of faith, as if the moral message of the bible/quaran/whatever did not rest on its own merits.

The evidence is that god-delusions are 100% coincident with human indoctrinating populations where the temporal and geographical divisions are clear!

There were no Islamic, Christian, Jewish, or Hindu, god-delusions, in the pre-Colombian Americas, and no Inca, Mayan, or Aztec god-delusions, around the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, or the Mediterranean!

God-delusions are real!
It is only their followers’ mentally constructed images of claimed god-activity in the real world, outside of the believer’s brains, which are fake!
Having said that, the memes do evolve as they replicate, with the most invasive ones spreading, where there is an absence of quarantine restrictions or population immunity!

When you do not know whether Ibrahim had existed or no ….waiting for archaeologists to decide for you..when religiously a toddler how could you prejudge religion and its messengers who have had the enormous impact on earth…

You do the honest thing and say I suspend judgment until I have good reasons (evidence) to believe. And yes Religion has massive impacts on society, causing numerous wars, genocides, servitude and stunted to the education of many for hundreds of years. It’s still causing massive damage now to Muslims more than most.

salt-fresh water…….I remember when studying environmental sedimentation and ocean carbonate…during struggle between rivers and seas to give estuaries or deltas…. and how salt waters enter under fresh waters of the amazon until 1500 km resulting of flooding fresh waters…from which benefit the surroundings… and how cold waters circulate oceans under hot waters cooling up europe rivages ….and how cold waters are more dense and remain in the bottom 2-4 degrees….

Alan4Discussion picked me up earlier on this so you should have a look at his comments. The problem I have is not that you can never get a divisions between salt and fresh water this happens, some ships have sunk for example because they have been too laden to say afloat in the less buoyant waters. The Q’uran cites that there is an “impenetrable barrier”. This is the issue I have with this as it is not the fresh and salt waters will eventually mix if there is any motion and movement. So where the Amazon waters meet the sea you get these layers but they will eventually mix. Now it is relevant to suggest that drink from this water not this water. But a God could have done better than saying the waters cannot mix – they do this is wrong.

Let me be more clear, I’ve asked you this before but you have not answered. What evidence can you give that does not make the exact same mistakes that Christians, Jews, Hindu’s, Buddist’s etc. make. You are making exactly the same assertions.

GE – I believe this because it is in a book written/inspired by my God.

Non-Believer – How do you know it was in fact written by God?

GE – Because it was written by God.

Can you see the mistake you are making? You have a book written many hundreds of years ago, you do not have any evidence that this book is remarkable in any way.

You have attempted to link descriptions of nature and in some cases ancient astronomy worked out hundreds of years before Christ and (which was often inaccurate) and claiming this is proof. There is nothing you have presented us with that could not have been observed at the time and it would be child’s play to do so. God could for example have predicted plate tectonics, genes, evolution, anything he did not. Failure after failure. All you have to go on is threat of hell and religious indoctrination.

This is the issue I have with this as it is not the fresh and salt waters will eventually mix if there is any motion and movement.

There is an interesting illustration of methodology here.
Modern scientists start with observations and measurements of specific features, and map out events in the real world and universe.

Believers in “Koranic science” start with “revelation texts” in the Koran, and try to apply them to the real world to prove their supposed value!

G.E.’s Amazon claim shows this beautifully!
Applying the insight that estuary waters CAN stratify, and there is a tidal bore changing the level of the Amazon surface, he concludes that this is caused by stratification illustrating the “divine knowledge” conferred on believers, who start their thinking with brief vague texts in their holy book!

There is stratification at the mouth of the Amazon, but it has NOTHING to do with the wave from the tidal bore moving far up river and flooding its banks!

The tidal bore is the result of the incoming tide and the tapering shape of the estuary channels.

So where the Amazon waters meet the sea you get these layers but they will eventually mix.

The freshwaters moving far off-shore will eventually mix as temperatures and salinity move towards equilibrium.

The saltwater tide backing up the freshwater to generate a bore is probably the WORST possible example of stable stratification!

It has violent, extremely turbulent mixing, aerations, and is churning so violently that material from eroded banks and river-bed sediments are fed into the mix: – with the intruding saltwater blocked by the backed up freshwater, and violently mixed as the fresh-water is pushed back to give the impact energy of tidal inflow against the river out-flow, which generates the freshwater wave as a bore! The wave then travels back up the river in the fresh water! !

This is foot-shooting Koranic methodology – scoring zero percent for reliability of material conclusions and interpretations – the result of really, really, really WANTING to believe these texts are “profound divine messages” which provide key sources of knowledge! !

I get similarly frustrated every time someone brings up the trope that it is scientifically proven that Bumble Bee’s can’t fly. This came up yesterday for me. Of course I couldn’t keep my mouth shut and nod politely, No actually science now can demonstrate how Bumble Bee’s can fly and any inability of science to explain it did not mean a miracle happened but just indicated that there was something that they did not fully understand.

I don’t think my correction went down too well because I wasn’t playing into the subjects assumption that science is full of arrogant materialists.

GE unfortunately seems caught in a trap of constantly referring to his holy book, because its a holy book and it’s holy (I think I might be channeling Tim Minchim here). But to his credit he does persist.

It’s hard to let go when you are confronted with people who casually smack down your arguments. The Ego takes a battering. He seems to be currently at the stage of finding that those quotes from the Q’uran didn’t work so I’ll go to these and to this tame “expert”. I suspect he has never experienced this sort of challenge before. The William Lane Craig types are far more dishonest their beliefs are so flexible that they will dishonestly twist and turn everything you say. GE seems at least honest (if under the spell), he seems to really believe this although he’s struggling to find what works with him isn’t convincing at all to us. When I was religious I was really convinced that using the arguments taught to me in Sunday school would work on others and was equally baffled that they had zero impact. English clearly isn’t his first language too so some of our arguments may not be getting through. Still I’d rather persist as frustrating as it is in the hope that he might begin to ask himself some of the same questions we are asking him. If nothing else he may perhaps come back with some more interesting challenges.

I mentioned this on the open discussion but it’s relevant here too the “This American Life Podcast” this week deals with conspiracy/cult/religious thinking worth a listen if you get a chance.

I get similarly frustrated every time someone brings up the trope that it is scientifically proven that Bumble Bee’s can’t fly.

This comes back to the (“knowing better”), one-dimensional uneducated creationist standard thinking: ” I can’t understand the science, so scientists don’t understand it either”!

This came up yesterday for me. Of course I couldn’t keep my mouth shut and nod politely, No actually science now can demonstrate how Bumble Bee’s can fly and any inability of science to explain it did not mean a miracle happened but just indicated that there was something that they did not fully understand.

We know that combat aircraft use the same constant correction of inherent instability to avoid attack!

On the methodology of deception, and impressing the gullible with the powers of nature being attributed to their gods, there is the classic Ache example, where “god sent a tsunami to punish evil doers”!

The mosque which had had money and modern engineering lavished on it, withstood the tsunami better than the the shoddy structures housing the impoverished believers who funded it.

The imams and their stooge politicians, are now riding a wave of support from those fearing further “retribution”, for failing to regularly attend and fund the local mosques, and for hosting those “rich, evil liberated” tourists on the beaches who use modern technologies to travel there!

The servile conned, are now regularly fervently praying that there will be no more tsunamis, while secular nations and scientists, are installing high-tech. tsunami warning systems and evacuation procedures!

It does not take much science education, to know which will be more effective at saving lives!

Because we, Atheists have lived a good enoughchunk or all of our lives in this questioning mode, we know we pretty much have all the answers. (I’m prepared to go further than most to proclaim confidence over having fully explanatory cosmogenies, consciousness and evolving moralities.) We have no need to rush through our knowledge our corroborated evidence and our reliably predictive theories. We have no pressure to play all our cards at once.

I think Ge’s adapting responses are encouraging of a productive exchange. The task surely is to tease Ge out into the world of questioning all our received wisdom? Testing and re-testing all. Having faith in doubt to test all other faiths.

Having faith is the easiest thing in the world as we see from the myriad disparate ones. But only one opens your eyes rather than closes them.

Reckless

The physics of insect flight makes easy sense these days now we can see how their wings actually move and we can simply model the fluid dynamics of such a complex system using computers.

Watched it over and over. On take off, I think I can see how the forewing changes from providing lift to forward thrust whilst the hindwing keeps providing lift. You can see the flip at the tips when up to speed. Amazing.

Christians and jews are unbelievers because they follow corrupted
books…

That partisan claim can just as easily be returned in kind – that Muhammad corrupted the religion of Abraham with pagan arab beliefs. As if the all-seeing, all-knowing god that spoke to Moses would wait for more than a thousand years before deciding that his followers should take a pilgrimage to a remote Arabian town and dance around a shiny black piece of rock to defy the devil. It is simply laughable.

When the self-styled “prophet” Muhammad created islam in the 7th century he used the Hebrew bible , stories from Christian gospels and bits and pieces of other religions and myths prevalent at the time to cobble together a new religion of his own fashioning. The flying horse of al-isra is copied from Pegasus of Greek mythology while the islamic paradise of corporal pleasures bears a striking resemblance to the abode of the Greco-Roman gods. Although supposedly illiterate, he would have become familiar with these various ideas from his travels as a camel trader. He was not the first “prophet” to do this. The Persian Mani did something similar in the 3rd century. His followers were called Manicheans and the movement became very powerful and widespread for a while.
Before the advent of islam all the Arab tribes in the Arabian peninsular were pagans. Their centre of worship was Mecca, where they worshipped 364 gods. The supreme god was Hubal the moon god, or al-ilah meaning ‘the god’. His symbol the crescent moon can still be seen on every mosque throughout the world today and on the flags of islamic states. The Ramadan fast, the Haj pilgrimage, the running around the black Kaaba stone and the stoning of ‘the devil’ are all pagan rituals which were retained in the new religion along with its supreme god.

Islam was developed as a tool for Arab imperialism. Promising primitive desert Arabs entrenched privilege over their women and immediate unlimited delights in paradise if they died in battle, while threatening them with death and hellfire if they tried to leave, enabled the recruitment of an army of loyal mindless followers to facilitate the advancement of Muhammad’s political ambitions. The rest is history ….

We have been taught that the first solid ever found was a gneiss, a metamorphic stone just after the end of the hadean eon 3800 millions years ago…and that is not at all in contradiction with the last revelation….If genesis tell otherwise …I do not care about genesis…I guess that some of you had suffered from childhood false-religion indoctrination…Even some are well educated…but all of you have ambiguities with the meaning of the word
[ religion ] because you read only the impression of others about religion..The religion must be read from its origin meticulously before taking a such countable heavy decision…When you mention the pagan-greco-roman-azteko-egyptians gods …That is not at all religion , and could be there gods-delusions ….why not …because they were imaginary gods invented because of fear….The true meaning of the word religion means Ibrahimic religions…the heavenic religions where messengers claim that they were sent from God and where God claims that he sends them….with their books …Zabur , Torah , Gospel and Koran..The Christianity and Judaism are now only religions remnants ….and only the last revelation is considered…The prophet had said if Moses is alive ..he has only to fellow me….the prophets are all brothers send by the same source ..each has own period of revelation….

This last post still offers no evidence, the very thing we crave to be able to rationally choose one thing over another.

Why not start by supplying evidence for this assertion…

The true meaning of the word religion means Ibrahimic religions

knowing that “religion” means literally and merely an idea or code or philosophy that binds. How can you choose Ibrahamic Religions over others?

And what about that last Ibrahamic prophet John Smith? You still avoid this. “Last” is not the final one whilst there can be more. History hasn’t stopped. What makes you think you haven’t got much still to learn?

Perhaps, Schmidt says, the site was a burial ground or the center of a death cult, the dead laid out on the hillside among the stylized gods and spirits of the afterlife.
If so, Gobekli Tepe’s location was no accident. “From here the dead are looking out at the ideal view,” Schmidt says as the sun casts long shadows over the half-buried pillars. “They’re looking out over a hunter’s dream.”

When you mention the pagan-greco-roman-azteko-egyptians gods …That is not at all religion , and could be there gods-delusions ….

They shows the normal features of religion – complete with god-delusions!

why not …because they were imaginary gods invented because of fear….

. . . and the evidence that Islam does not have these same features is ?

The true meaning of the word religion means Ibrahimic religions…

You simply define the Islamic version of the Abrahamic religions as “religion” and then claim this as YOUR RELIGION is “THE true religion”- just as the Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Catholics, etc. do for their versions!

This is simply circular thinking, and begging the question. – “My view is correct, because it is my view, and I say it is correct”! – No supporting evidence required!

the heavenic religions where messengers claim that they were sent from God and where God claims that he sends them

According to whom?
Unsurprisingly the Incas also claimed to have (sacrificed) messengers communicating with gods!
Priests from tomes immemorial have claims to have exclusive messages from gods!
The evidence is that such people were either charlatans, or delusional!

We have been taught that the first solid ever found was a gneiss, a metamorphic stone just after the end of the hadean eon 3800 millions years ago

Presumably having been provided with that information by modern scientists!

…and that is not at all in contradiction with the last revelation

Could you quote the passage from the Koran which mentions the rock gneiss, 3800 or millions years old (or zircons @4.374 million years old), being found on Earth?
This is news to me – given that none of its writers knew the age of the Earth or the methods of dating rocks at that time!

As I quote @#197 – these dates are only calculated since the discovery of radiometric dating.

When I had said .. We have been taught that the first solid ever found was a gneiss, a metamorphic stone just after the end of the hadean eon 3800 millions years ago…I mean during my study of natural sciences ….

The physics of insect flight makes easy sense these days now we can see how their wings actually move and we can simply model the fluid dynamics of such a complex system using computers.

Yes, the myth started when a physicist at a dinner party many decades ago did a back of the envelope calculations at a dinner party, making the assumption that their wings were flat plates. Under this model the wings cannot produce enough lift but after looking under a microscope and finding they a) weren’t flat b) had microscopic structures which held vortices’s close to the wings increasing the lift dramatically (about all I can remember now). I used to instruct in gyroplanes and every second student it seemed would bring this one up used to drive me nuts. That probably has more to do with my ASD but also a huge sadness that people don’t get just how humble and curious science really is.

I guess that some of you had suffered from childhood false-religion indoctrination…

Yes that would be absolutely correct in my case, and in discovering how easily I had been conned by simple lies and fear of hell I made sure in future to be more careful about what I believe without evidence. Evidence we are still waiting for you to produce. Essentially all you are saying is…

“My religion is true, what you believe is false”

That God Exist is an assertion that anyone can make, I can make up any religion I want right now. Let’s go..

The universe was pooped out of the bum of a unicorn called Basil, anyone who doesn’t believe in Basil will be eaten by him and live the next billion years being slowly digested in the seven stages of his digestive system until in a glorious day a rainbow will be belched out of his mouth destroying the unbelievers once and for all.

There you go, now clearly you would be wondering why you should believe this? If I was to respond as you do, I’d say “Because it is written by the Prophet of Basil called Reckless Monkey to whom he revealed all in a dream”. You’d respond “But I only have your word for this”. I could respond that “Only those with a pure heart can see Brian”.

My religion has every bit as much a foundation as yours. That is to say none whatsoever!

Even some are well educated…but all of you have ambiguities with the meaning of the word
[ religion ] because you read only the impression of others about religion..The religion must be read from its origin meticulously

I’ve read the Q’uran, the bible (twice) and the Book of Mormon (twice – once meticulously as an adult). I’ve gone further and read what the opponents of religion have to say. You are to be congratulated God Exist for at least being willing to expose yourself to critically viewpoints on this forum. You are still avoiding answering our questions though and you need to think to yourself (at least) why this is so. Why are you refusing to show us evidence – The Q’uran is not evidence of a deity it is evidence that someone wrote a book no more. If the Q’uran can provide any strong evidence for it’s claims then that is something else but so far everything you’ve presented from the Q’uran has been vague and nothing the average year 8 student could blow out of the water. That is every year 8 student can give a basic model of the solar system that far outstrips the Q’uran in precision, accuracy and testability. Many on this cite God Exist have in fact the read the holy books of different religions including the Q’uran some were even raised Muslim themselves. What this should be telling you is that perhaps you need to wonder why you cannot provide them with any evidence to bring them or us into the fold of Islam.

We are asking for you to convince us, surely God wants us to be convinced so why can you not give us any evidence?

before taking a such countable heavy decision…

This is a version of Pascals wager – you may wish to google it. Basically he said this “If I believe in God and I’m wrong what have I lost? However if I don’t believe in God I could be eternally damned”

Pascal though failed to add the other religions into his calculations. There have been many thousands of religions, all of which have as much evidence as yours (none at all). As most of these claim like Islam that unbelievers would be destroyed then the odds of you being correct are infinitesimally small. What’s more I have not rejected any of these Gods I just remain to be convinced. This is a honest approach, any just God would surely prefer my position of “I asked all of your followers to give me evidence but they did not” than someone who believes out of fear of hell or because they just happened to be born into their religion. I am open to believe whatever can be demonstrated. If God or his representatives on Earth choose not to do so I can only assume he does not want me to believe.

G.e.The religion must be read from its origin meticulously before taking a such countable heavy decision…

I have to wonder whether “God exist” has followed his own advice, and studied all of the worlds’ religions denominations and cults, – each meticulously from its origin, before deciding which ones are false? 🙂

Putting aside the terrorist element for now, Ge represents the worse kind of Islam for me. There will always be some woo regardless but, what type of Islam is tolerable? I can’t say for sure that a softer, open and progressive Islam might not have had me as a child. I will say that I think it was more logic and probably my mums weakness for rumours and myths that made me questions things. Once I had gotten rid of ghosts and monsters under my bed the rest seemed open for scrutiny.

So, what is an exceptable Islam given that you will always be able to challenge the woo when presented?

So, what is an exceptable Islam given that you will always be able to challenge the woo when presented?

One that does not affect moral choices through moral dogma. One that respects children and empowers their freedom of choices when grown.

(I’ve met Christians and Muslims like this. We have no right to expect or insist they give a damn about atheism. They have lives to lead.)

Next best is one that manages real movement towards those things with each generation.

Next, one that doesn’t pretend it has any purchase on matters of science. A religion makes untestable claims on there being a supernatural realm of reality. Compliance with science is fatuous and time wasting.

Folk wanting to think that they were in some way meant to be here are free to enjoy their aesthetic view. But this is a personal aesthetic and no rights to oppressively insist upon it should stand.

Your lack of self-awareness is frankly tragic, and an indictment of the people who brought you up with such a blinkered outlook on life.

messengers claim that they were sent from God and where God claims
that he sends them

The key word that gives the game away is claim, defined as : “assert that something is the case, typically without providing evidence or proof.

The point we have all been stressing on this forum is that you are constantly repeating archaic and preposterous beliefs with no evidence to support them, while your only documented source is full of evident factual errors that we have easily demonstrated.

Your opinions on the relative merits of religions don’t concern us, since we judge them all to be just manifestations of primitive pagan beliefs, whatever their source or geographical location. We can understand your special pleading for the pagan arab form of judaism developed in the 7th. century by the merchant warlord muhammad, as just an unfortunate by-product of your cultural conditioning, but the narrow tribal nature of your delusions, too often manifested by those like you, is a concern.

Hi Mods! I have a proposal. Would it be entirely possible, given the
propensity of the de-railing of topics ad infinitum, similar to the
monthly “Open Discussion” thread, and perhaps a monthly topic is in
order in that vein? A “Religion” open discussion forum?

Hi Eric,

Apologies for the late reply. Thanks for the suggestion. We’ll bear it in mind, though the kind of situation you’re talking about really doesn’t happen all that often. And the “open discussion” threads were intended as a way of catering for discussion of all topics that didn’t have dedicated threads already, so discussions about religion could take place on those. Your suggestion would certainly be an option if they were to start occurring more often, though.

When I have said that the revelation do not contradicts the early birth of earth…even the human race has existed long before…According to the revelation , when the prophet was asked how many messengers were sent to humankind ..he responded 315 messengers and 124 000 prophets…huge amounts of messengers and prophets… Also according to the revelation , men had before the longevity of more than thousand years…taking all that in consideration , man existence is compatible with what geology predict…and earth was long before prepared by God ….[ Quran (79:30) And after that He has spread out the earth in the egg-shape (for habitability).31.He draweth out therefrom its moisture and its pasture;32.And the mountains hath He firmly fixed; ] …not even the revelation contradicts the evolution…Who believes in Quran surely believes that Adam was tall and we are small…that Aad and Thamud were giants and we are dwarf and before man lives more than one thousand years now we live little…All that is evolution.The only confrontation is that Adam was created apart ….And when we look at apes , they are living their own boom- phase , the phase that precede the extinction as we are…the only difference is that their boom-phase is much longer than ours …Which means that we are not issued from each other…And there is no evident link between the two species..

The characters of Âdam and Ḥawwāh (Eve) appear in the Qur’an as the first man and woman.[5] However, no explicit mention is made of how the two people developed.[12] Therefore, it is open to speculation of whether Adam and Hawwa evolved naturally from a common ancestor as Islamic scholar Mohamed Ghlian asserts[13] or were supernaturally created through a miracle by Allah as Islamic scholar Yasir Qadhi asserts.[14]

Who believes in Quran surely believes that Adam was tall and we are
small…that Aad and Thamud were giants and we are dwarf and before man
lives more than one thousand years now we live little…All that is
evolution.The only confrontation is that Adam was created apart ….And
when we look at apes , they are living their own boom- phase , the
phase that precede the extinction as we are…the only difference is
that their boom-phase is much longer than ours …Which means that we
are not issued from each other…And there is no evident link between
the two species..

All you have confirmed there is that Who believes in Quran as you do, believes in fantastic nonsense, none of which bears any resemblance to evidence-based scientific reality, instead based on primitive Mesopotamian mythology. There used to be people who believed that the world floated on the back of a giant turtle. That is just as credible as what you have just blurted out here.

It is interesting to speculate if a similar religious movement could take off in today’s world.

Just imagine, somewhere in the Middle East, maybe Syria, a self-styled religious leader proclaims a revisionist movement to ‘purify ‘ a faith, he gathers followers, he instigates a strict code of behaviour, with violent repression of dissent, he militarises his followers and he invades surrounding territories.

[ Quran (And We have built the heavens with Our own hands; and, verily, it is We who are steadily expanding it.) (51:47) ]…How could an illiterate knows that the universe is expanding..even Einstein refused to accept that until it was confirmed by Hubble when intercepting the famous 3 degree infrared ‘fossil’ elongated due to Doppler shifting…

We have told you before about these disingenuous attempts to equate modern scientific ideas with selective translations of your ancient book of religious myths. You are only deceiving yourself.
My approved translation at (51:47) says “We have built the heaven with might; and we have given it a large extent”, which says nothing of an expanding universe, not surprising since it was not known of by 7th century arabs.

After nearly a week and 200+ posts later, you are back where you started.

[ Quran (And We have built the heavens with Our own hands; and, verily, it is We who are steadily expanding it.) (51:47) ]

The concept of “the Universe” at that time, was the Earth, the Sun, the Moon, a few planets (moving lights in the sky), and a celestial sphere of stars with angels dancing around them! They knew NOTHING of galaxies or universes!

All you are doing is reading modern knowledge into vague texts, with wishful “ink-blot” interpretations! – along with an imaginary giant Adam and a fairytale garden!

Why don’t you engage in a follow-up rational discussion of the replies we have given you, and answer some of the questions we have asked – (such as #188, #203, #218 and #219)

Likewise the claim:- I have a poor understanding of history, so this assertion is an accurate interpretation of the scribe’s understanding at the time of writing!

My approved translation at (51:47) says
“We have built the heaven with might;
and we have given it a large extent”,
which says nothing of an expanding universe,

But if a god-delusion really, really, really, wants its host to feel impressed, a very “loose” translation will do to convince the indoctrinated admirer, and instil surprise that other educated people are not similarly impressed! 🙂

[ God exist #235..."Quran (And We have built the heavens with Our own hands; and, verily, it is We who are steadily expanding it.) (51:47) ]

What the entertainingly persistent ‘God exist’ has in fact quoted here is nothing more than just another instance of Muhammad (or other quaran author) copying the very same assertion from the bible, as here in Isaiah, chapter 42: 5:

‘This is what God the Lord says—he who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it, who gives breath to its people, and life two those who walk in it’

How have we not cleared this more modern version out within a year? Politics? Thats all I am saying! The world against them would have been easy but its not that simple is it?

The list in my second list shows the criticism is for religious reasons and seems to have become a tradition and makes me suspicious of present day representation. I am only after facts. Religion is the spooky factor here. 🙂

But if a god-delusion really, really, really, wants its host to feel
impressed, a very “loose” translation will do to convince the
indoctrinated admirer

I am reminded of something I read in Bertrand Russell :

“… according to the mystics, every text of the koran had 7 or 70 or 700 layers of interpretation, the literal meaning being only for the ignorant vulgar. It would follow that a philospher’s teaching could not possibly conflict with the koran, for among 700 interpretations there would surely be at least one that would fit what the philosopher had to say. In the Mohammedan world, however, the ignorant seem to have objected to all learning that went beyond a knowledge of the holy book; it was dangerous, even if no specific heresy could be demonstrated.”

This imprisonment of the enquiring mind in the islamic world seems to have set in as early as around the 12th century, and as ‘God exist’ has amply demonstrated here, it remains widespread to this day.

If you believe in the impossible may as well believe this too, why not men living for a billion years. Meanwhile back in the real world people rarely live over 100. Yet another quote from the Q’uran. The problem here God Exist is these claims should be making you think “Might this be untrue? What evidence do I have for this?”, what you are demonstrating here is a willingness to use nonsense to bolster up your claims of other nonsense.

Who believes in Quran surely believes that Adam was tall and we are small…that Aad and Thamud were giants and we are dwarf and before man lives more than one thousand years now we live little…All that is evolution.

God Exist, you really need to read up on evolution none of this remotely resembles evolution.

The only confrontation is that Adam was created apart ….And when we look at apes , they are living their own boom- phase , the phase that precede the extinction as we are…the only difference is that their boom-phase is much longer than ours …Which means that we are not issued from each other…And there is no evident link between the two species..

We know we are evolved from a common ancestor with Chimps because we share something close to 98% of our DNA with Chimps including a fused pair of chromosomes that exactly match the un-fused versions in Chimps. The same coding goes on either side of the two chromosomes in chimps but in use that is the same dna (98%) goes in both directions from the point of fusion. This is pretty much a slam dunk. If God made us as a separate creation then he did so putting in evidence that we were in fact evolved from a common ancestor with chimps. This goes back to my earlier Pascal wager point. If god wants me to believe we are evolved then why is he tricking us. Perhaps only the atheists will get into heaven.

Your explanation of boom phase is not clear God Exist, clearly English is your second language so this is not a criticism I think your doing well to speak more than one language but I simply don’t understand what you mean, can you try re-phrasing this bit.

In the Mohammedan world, however, the ignorant seem to have objected to all learning that went beyond a knowledge of the holy book;

The arguments do seem to take the form: “Look at this feature of nature! – Isn’t it awesome – what a clever god to have done this AND explained it to primitives in a holy book!”

The objectives are to impress the awestruck ignorant – so when informed people say, “Hold on! Nature does not work like that! You don’t understand nature, or the text you are acclaiming”, this is dismissed, or ignored, no learning takes place, no understanding is achieved, and disinformation continues to be asserted – and spoon-fed to other “impressed”uncritical believers!

The posture of “superior knowledge” from an “infallible source”, is then taken up, and all actual knowledge is claimed to support these views – with any conflicting evidence edited out of that world-view!

Many features in nature are awesome, but the uncritical ignorant are easily impressed, and conjurer style simplistic asserted explanations are sufficient to impress them!

I have made it clear that the Amazon tidal bore, and the forest flooding upstream, have nothing to do with the stratification at the river mouth or haloclines!

Alan @#219 – I wonder if you you have up-dated your views in the light of these?

So far there is no relevant G.e. response!!

Who believes in Quran surely believes that Adam was tall and we are small…that Aad and Thamud were giants and we are dwarf and before man lives more than one thousand years now we live little…All that is evolution.

. . . . and all that proves, is that the so-called study of geology, natural sciences, palaeontology, and evolution, was in creationist pseudo-science science denial sources, and no understanding of evolution whatever is being demonstrated.
All the fossil evidence, shows ancestral humans/apes, to be smaller than most present-day people – with the shrew-like mammal ancestors tiny, and reptilian, amphibian, and marine ancestry, going further back.

Despite the name-dropping of famous scientists as badges of false authority or attributed incredulity, there is no evidence of any understanding of astronomy either!

The objectives seen to be to erect a learning barrier of “god-did-it” awesome delusion, and wallow in it!

When I gave the example of the Amazon , I gave it from my previous study of natural sciences , Amazon in not at all cited in Quran…The verse that cited fresh water and salt water is the following…[ Quran(25:53) And He is the One Who has merged the two seas, this one sweet, grateful (to taste), and this salt, bitter (to the tongue); and He has made between them an isthmus, and an utter- obstruction. (Literally: obstruction obstructed) ]… When I had said that men lived once more than one thousand years and 124000 was sent..I am not trying to let you believe that , but only saying that is compatible with geologists prediction about the emergence of human race….Surely the word used in Quran means expanding , extending…and both are complementary …When it comes to the word boom. I mean blooming or blossoming…

Moderators have right . no insult , some respect , be in term of use…Because one of you is only insulting , mocking..showing no readiness to discuss and how he is [ sick of religion ]…I am simple , modest , alone …I do not believe in movement or party….

When I had said that men lived once more than one thousand years and 124000 was sent..I am not trying to let you believe that , but only saying that is compatible with geologists prediction about the emergence of human race

You are either struggling with the language, or this is utter nonsense!No humans lived to be a thousand years old (despite fairy stories about Noah), and no reputable geology, palaeontology or genetic studies in scientific journals, make this claim!

In science debates we have respect for people, but no respect for false assertions or mistaken ideas. Ideas have to earn respect by being supported as correct by using credible evidence.

This is certainly true. No problem at all with vigorously challenging ideas, though there's no reason why even that can't be done in a courteous or even friendly manner. That's part of the "respect for people" bit. A few of the comments posted over the course of this thread have verged on personal insult. Let's keep things civil as well as robust, please.

[For clarity, although this is a response to your comment, Alan, it's not directed specifically at you.]

Dear Marge. I fully embrace evolution, after forty years of being moved from fundamentalism through ID and theistic evolution, and the entire physicalist narrative (well I want to, I really do…) BUT I find myself unable not to believe God as revealed in Jesus as seen through postmodern eyes, with incidental support from William Lane Craig’s Kalam Cosmological Argument. What am I to do?!

I find myself unable not to believe God as revealed in Jesus as seen through postmodern eyes, with incidental support from William Lane Craig’s Kalam Cosmological Argument. What am I to do?!

Thanks for the witty post!

My personal answer would be this:

If your attachment to the Jesus character/story is something you apply solely to yourself – that is, if it’s merely something that appeals, that gives you inspiration or comfort or something to live up to; something that inspires you to be kinder, more compassionate, more inclusive, more tolerant, bolder in sticking up for the underdog – then there’s no need for you to do anything at all. I don’t share your beliefs, indeed, I believe them to be false; but your thoughts and beliefs are your own affair, provided they don’t have impact negatively on anyone else.

I would only be concerned if, on the basis of your beliefs, you felt entitled or indeed obliged to have a detrimental effect on other people. If you didn’t accept people of different sexual orientations as having all the same rights that straight people do, for example. If you didn’t accept women’s rights to have maximum control over their bodies and to assume positions of authority and influence in exactly the same way men do. If you discriminated against non-believers, or followers of other religions. If you bullied people by threatening them with judgement and hellfire. If you failed to accept the rights of others to live their lives to the full, even though they don’t share your beliefs. If you refused to take steps against climate change because you believed God would take care of it. If you condemned countless numbers of people to agonised, traumatic, undignified deaths because your belief in the ‘sacredness’ of life led you to oppose assisted dying. If you demanded that public policy – which is, after all, supposed to be for the benefit of all, equally – was restricted to that which was approved of by the Bible. If you imposed your beliefs on children rather than giving them the space and time to decide for themselves. If you flew in the face of scientific knowledge or lied about it.

I have known plenty of Christians who managed to believe passionately while not doing any of the things in that last paragraph. Some of them have been my friends. I have also known others, whose Christianity has led them into meanness, judgement, intolerance, bigotry. I realised long ago that Christianity comes in many flavours and that the flavour Christians plump for tends to reflect their personality and preferences. There are generous Christians and there are asshole Christians, just as there are generous atheists and asshole atheists. With that in mind, I say it’s who you are that matters; what you are. Not what you believe. Give me the choice between a kind, generous person and an asshole, I’ll choose the kind, generous person any day, whatever else they may believe in.

In the time of revelation…If you say that ant could speak it will be for some laughable…but now it is confirmed scientifically…. [ Quran . Till, when they reached the Valley of the Ants, an ant exclaimed: O ants! Enter your dwellings lest Solomon and his armies crush you, unperceiving.] https://youtu.be/pYdwdu3J5CA

…some respect… insulting , mocking..showing no readiness to discuss and how he is [
sick of religion ]

With a few exceptions this discussion has been fully focussed on demolishing your arguments from archiaic religious scripture that are rendered absurd in terms of modern Science.
It should not surprise or dismay you that we on this site have no respect for the claims of religion in these or indeed most other matters.

Finally, since you yourself show no respect for other religions :

Christianity and Judaism are now only religions remnants …

Christians and jews are unbelievers because they follow corrupted
(sic) books

you are in no position to stamp your little feet and ask for ‘respect’ for your private belief system, if you decide to parade it before us.

God exist #256
Jan 19, 2018 at 2:03 pm
If you say that ant could speak it will be for some laughable…but now it is confirmed scientifically

Err no! Ants communicate with each other chemically, but they do not communicate with humans – unless you class as “speaking”, spraying stinging acid to persuade humans or other animals to go away or releasing pheromones ! 🙂

The reactions of ants to pheromones are quite easy to observe – a bit like humans or dogs reacting to smells.

In the time of revelation…If you say that ant could speak it will be
for some laughable…but now it is confirmed scientifically…. [ Quran .
Till, when they reached the Valley of the Ants, an ant exclaimed: O
ants! Enter your dwellings lest Solomon and his armies crush you,

There is a children’s book called ‘Winnie the Pooh’, written long ago, in which there is a talking bear.

Scientists have discovered that bears make noises to each other.

REVELATION !!!!!!!!!!

(you were right about one thing – ‘laughable’.)

Incidentally, it is recorded in the writings of the third century Christian Church Father Origen (among others), quoting from the Greek philosopher Celsus, that ants communicated effectively and in great details by ” language”, so it is a notion with previous history. http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/origen164.html

However, it is limited to very basic, non-verbal communications that enhance survival chances. Food! (as in the example you’ve linked.) Predator! Go away!

Ants are no more capable of thinking about Solomon and his armies than they are of writing the sonnets of Shakespeare.

Seriously, GE. You need to be more exacting in what you believe. It’s great that you’re interested in the living world, but it’s important to be clear about the nature of evidence and scrupulous about the extent to which it is evidence of anything at all. Evidence of ants communicating about juicy leaves is … evidence that ants communicate about juicy leaves. From there to ants knowing the names of humans, let alone predicting the behaviours of their armies, is one hell of a leap!

Prophet says in a Hadith… Moslim narrator.[ when the semen reaches forty two nights , the Almighty God send an angel to proportion it and create its hearing , sight , skin , and its flesh and bones…..] …The prophet specify the beginning of very tiny cleavages of hearing and sight… given that the embryo is approximately one inch…and that is not mentioned before the twenty century…. https://youtu.be/NWaxwtAznqk

Prophet says in a Hadith… Moslim narrator.[ when the semen reaches
forty two nights , the Almighty God send an angel to proportion it and
create its hearing , sight , skin , and its flesh and bones…..] …The
prophet specify the beginning of very tiny cleavages of hearing and
sight… given that the embryo is approximately one inch…and that is not
mentioned before the twenty century…

An early understanding of human embryology was given by the Greek scholar Galen, nearly 500 years before the onset of islam, so the sayings of the so-called ‘prophet’ here are merely restatements of what was already known at the time.

As for “when the semen reaches forty two nights”, that is of course nonsense. Semen and the sperm it contained fulfilled their function forty two nights earlier as soon as the first sperm penetrated the cell wall of the ovum, details of which the ‘prophet’ and indeed every human on Earth in the 7th century had no idea.

Prophet says in a Hadith… Moslim narrator.[ when the semen reaches forty two nights , the Almighty God send an angel to proportion it and create its hearing , sight , skin , and its flesh and bones…..]

Except of course that semen has been long flushed out of the woman and it is the embryo which grows.

When I had said that men lived once more than one thousand years and 124000 was sent..I am not trying to let you believe that , but only saying that is compatible with geologists prediction about the emergence of human race

okay you are just wrong then. If god made the Earth in 6 days and each man lived 1000 years even if there was no overlap in their lives and one lived to 1000 as another was born then that date the Earth at around 124 000 000 (124 million) compared to the actual age of the Earth which is about 4 540 000 000 + or – 0.05 billion years (4.54 billion years) which is about 36 times older is god really so imprecise? Let alone the fact that you have no evidence of people being able to live more than 10 times the life expectancy of modern humans. When people or books start claiming things that are extraordinary you need to look for other evidence outside of the book.

When it comes to the word boom. I mean blooming or blossoming…

Thanks for the clarification so I’ll go back the the statement you made in relation to apes and we’ll have a look at that. I’ll add the blomming in beside bloom to make it easier to read.

….And when we look at apes , they are living their own boom-(blooming) phase , the phase that precede the extinction as we are…the only difference is that their boom(blooming)-phase is much longer than ours …Which means that we are not issued from each other…And there is no evident link between the two species..

God Exist, you seem to be under the impression that if one species evolved from another that the two cannot co-exist. This is not true, we for example artificially selected dogs from wolves that is some wolves were tamed by us and we only allowed to breed those that wouldn’t attack us and then began to select for other characteristics as well. Today we have all the varieties of dog that exist at the same time as wolves. So we have all the different types of dogs and we still have wolves in their original form. We did not replace wolves with dogs we breed different breeds from wolves. Some dogs may now be far enough away from wolves to not be able to breed and could therefore be considered a different species (arguably – but not necessarily I could be wrong here the speciation might rely on needing to be genetically incapable). So a dachshund for example would have a hard time breeding with a wolf for an number of reasons (needing a ladder being one, the dachshund becoming the wolves lunch another).

You should google ring species for another example of this type of thing in nature.

In nature often species are changed through the isolation of individuals of the same species so you might have some primates that exist on the coast and an Earthquake could separate one group from the other breaking away a island from the mainland. Both initially have the same species but the separation means there is now no way of interbreeding between the groups so now one species is able to change in relation to the other. This genetic drift allows for one group to change dramatically compared to the other. So just because one species still exists largely unchanged it doesn’t mean no other species cannot have separated from the first group.

However even this doesn’t tell the whole story in the case of humans and chimps we both shared a common ancestor. That is we both evolved from a different ancestor that we have both evolved away from. Chimps have evolved as much as we have in fact all modern animals and plants share a common ancestor and have thus evolved as much as each other. Some of these change a great deal in a short amount of time and some change very little, the change is dictated by what survives survives, in a stable environment this might mean animals look much as they did 100’s of millions of years ago, if environment changes happen dramatically you can notice a difference in a population in decades such as beak sizes in Finches on Islands. So a croc may look much the same as its ancestors did 100’s of millions of years ago and we humans have dramatically changed in a few million.

To be clear we did not evolve from modern chimpanzees we and chimps share the same ancient ancestor. No evolutionary biologist ever said we evolved from chimps they said we share an ancestor and these are our most related modern animal. If this doesn’t make sense think about families. I have cousins they share not a parents but a grandparents. My cousin therefore shares quite a bit DNA with me. But I did not come from my cousin I came through my parents the ancestors we have in common are my grandparents. So our common ancestor is our grandparents. On a species level this is better at describing our relationship with chimps. Perhaps someone else might do a better job but I hope this makes sense as you are not getting the science of evolution correct here God Exist.

Even if you disagree with something it is important to argue against the point the field of science is actually
saying. The trouble with the creationists you are listening to is they are setting up a straw man (look up straw manning in google) to knock it down. They are simply dishonest. You must try to not to do the same.

Prophet says in a Hadith… Moslim narrator.[ when the semen reaches forty two nights , the Almighty God send an angel to proportion it and create its hearing , sight , skin , and its flesh and bones…..]

The right direction: Been on that way for many a year. I have completely embraced objective mainstream science, no caveats. Last year I followed Alan Guth’s Youtube presentations. Beautiful. Shook my faith like nothing had for 50 years. Again, your rhetoric’s very… nice, but can you do the science and the philosophy necessary to demonstrate WLC’s lack? And yes of course you will, like rogeroney’s link below.

rogeroney: Thanks for the link. All argument is circular. Including that one.

You see the thing is chaps, I don’t actually LIKE WLC’s apologetics, I don’t like any, but ESPECIALLY his. And you guys are wayyyyyyy too smart, I’m an old duffer in the wee-wee end of the pool as in life. So swathes of genius proving that causality is illusory are… irrelevant. Om just a bloke on the bus. You’re going to have to finger paint it for me, but if it’s intellectualist then, that can’t be done. Like quantum chromodynamics apparently. There are no analogies. We’ll just have to take it from you clever chaps.

Craig, despite himself, highlights for me the problem, which you’ll find risible I’m sure, a non-problem that’s not even wrong, like causality, as to why the universe is logically apprehendable. Before you stomp all over that, a mere recycling of the anthropic principle, just invoke the watchmaker/jumbo jet created by chance in an infinite eternal scrapyard, I’ll drool on. You’ll need waders.

For me, pleb on he bus, no matter how clever, how scientificalisticalist you are, the problem is apprehendability.

Either something creates universes or nothing does. Null does. The something or the null have to be constant. Null creates universes. Or is that the same as saying. Null. Universes. ? There can be null. There can be universes. Uncaused quantum perturbations in no context at all, (not even the principle of /) null, that can become universes. I believe Hawking doesn’t believe necessarily in the multiverse, whereas Guth does. The multiverse being the something that generates universes as opposed to the null that does/not, as well as all the (increasing (do they die?)?) infinite universes. The principle that does, that is: because there can be null there can be not null. The something being an uncaused ‘infinite’, ‘eternal’, net zero-entropy, quantum vacuum field.

Whatever. Regardless of causality (and eternalism and all sorts of clever stuff endlessly churned out) or NOT, from the back of everyone’s favourite fag packet (wiki, on KCA): ‘why [does] anything and everything… not randomly appear into existence without a cause.’? And ‘Andrew Loke reasons that if something (e.g. universe=physical reality as a whole) begins to exist without any antecedent necessary condition whatsoever, then many other kinds of things which can begin to exist within our universe would also begin to exist within our universe without antecedent condition, because (i) there would not be any antecedent condition which would make it the case that only universes (rather than these other kinds of things) begins to exist, and (ii) the properties of universes and the properties of other kinds of things which differentiate between them would be had by them only when they had already begun to exist. In that case our universe would have been very different.’, Andrew Loke, God and Ultimate Origins (Cham: Springer International, 2017), viii-ix, 138-153. Know what uh mean? Feels right to me. In me water. On the bus.

Now believe it or not, in me water, I feel that to imply that a bowl of petunias or half man, half biscuit must come in to existence alone or within a universe because they can in eternal infinity is… just a bit silly. But surely implying quantum perturbations and actual universes with any of the infinite array of apparently random valued dimensionless constants can isn’t? But we never see that. We see a sublimely rationally apprehendable universe. The implications of acausality to plebs on the bus don’t arise.

Which circularly (so what?) implies cause. Order. Restraint. On behalf of the uncaused ‘infinite’, ‘eternal’, net zero-entropy, quantum vacuum field or the (null->!null) principle. Or is there a good scientific reason why no random universes even try and come in to existence in ours? I’d LOVE the delicious humiliation, masochist that I am, of you reaching down from Olympus to daub the risibly obvious answer on my cave wall, but, can it be done? Or you just can’t understand it for me, whatever it is. Am I still blindly doing the watchmaker? In uncaused infinite eternity (yeah, yeah, yeah, B-Theory, yadder, yadder, yadder), as well as nested random physics universes there are infinitely unnested, single physics ones? Get over it? If that’s not your answer on a fag packet, what is?

Marco: Glad you liked it. I’m both. In theory I’m a radically inclusive liberal. So radical that I want to include the exclusively illiberal. Find a way forward with them, modal humanity, whom you will ALWAYS have with you, publically, DOMINANTLY, in the agora. I have gone in theory from asshole Christian (Christ stain) to generous. However I am fundamentally an asshole too. Very broken with some ghastly internal and external responses. Found wanting. Being a nice theoretical armchair liberal, a Corbynista (I want equality of outcome for all), the lot, paradoxically doesn’t work in my own front room. Breaks down caring for my demented 87 year old mother. (And no, my external response doesn’t include a cattle prod). We’ve admitted defeat and she’s going in to care the week after next. I hope that’s real enough? I want us all to be open and honest and vulnerable together, like the group sessions in the awesome film Starred Up. So there’s no way it can be private.

Either something creates universes or nothing does. Null does. The something or the null have to be constant. Null creates universes. Or is that the same as saying. Null. Universes. ? There can be null. There can be universes. Uncaused quantum perturbations in no context at all, (not even the principle of /) null, that can become universes.

We really don’t need to pretend to know all the answers, or use the god-of gaps ignorance cover.
We can say that nobody actually knows what creates universes – or what might create gods/aliens powerful enough to create universes.
There are various speculations – some more credible than others.
We do know fairly certainly that the big-bang created our universe out of sub-atomic particles, and it has been evolving ever since.

What we can say, is that the “god-did-it” answer, merely raises the question “Who or what, created the creator, of the creator, of the creator”, ad-infinitum! – With an infinite regression of creators.

I believe Hawking doesn’t believe necessarily in the multiverse, whereas Guth does. The multiverse being the something that generates universes as opposed to the null that does/not, as well as all the (increasing (do they die?)?) infinite universes. The principle that does, that is: because there can be null there can be not null. The something being an uncaused ‘infinite’, ‘eternal’, net zero-entropy, quantum vacuum field.

This is all speculation about the physics of space-time, and universes is merely used as a smoke-screen by those hiding gods from scrutiny.

The hidden gods have always (allegedly) been just outside the field of human observation and knowledge!
They used to be in the clouds – until telescopes and aeroplanes were invented.
They were in the celestial spheres circulating around a geocentric flat Earth – until the heliocentric Solar-Sytem was discovered.
They were “in the heavens” until galaxies were discovered, and they are allegedlynow “beyond time and space” in universes or multiverses!

This is all sleight of hand distraction!
All the gods which have ever existed, have been geographically temporally coincident, with the populations which believed in them! – nowhere else! (Zeus in Ancient Greece, Thor in Scandinavia, Ra in ancient Egypt, Jehovah in Israel, Lord Vishnu in India. Inti and Illapa of the Incas.)
There is a very good reason for that!
It is because gods exist as indoctrinated delusions in the minds of believers (usually during the early stages of childhood mental development), and are built by them into their concepts of reality! (with a bit of help from their parents and priests.)

If we look at actual real-world choices, the chances of choosing the “right” god from the thousands of gods, and thousands of versions of gods, is minimal: – even before we look at the likelihood that there are no gods in physical existence – and all gods are all customised delusions, in the brains of believers! – Hence the huge range of conflicting claims about the properties and supposed actions of these gods.

Of course these god(delusion)s change and adapt as they evolve as time goes on! Some branch into new religions and new versions. Others go extinct!

I earlier gave links to the Canaanite pantheon of gods (El, Yahweh, Jehovah), which are the ancestors which morphed into the Jewish god. There were, in Roman times, many differing sects of Christianity, and there are many thousands of denominations and sects today – each with their own versions of THE Christian god!

Alan4discussion. Entertaining rhetoric on postmodernism,

I hope you read the link all the way to the end!
The point was that postmodernists bamboozle themselves and each other, with entangled verbosity, which can just as easily be generated by computer programmes – to produce similar seemingly impressive, meaningless nonsense!

Their vague obfuscation, is the very opposite of scientists’ reports, which provide precise definitions of scientific terms used, and make statements as clear and concise as possible – often using mathematics formuli, and stated accuracies.

Only simplistic god claims can be refuted! Most god-claims are too vague, and undefined, to even coherently discuss. That is because believers WANT to believe, but cannot produce credible material evidence in the real world, for what are just self-deceptions in their own heads!

Al opinions are NOT equal! Some have evidence backed expertise, others do not!

what makes you think I lack critical thinking etc

We all need to work at developing our critical reasoning faculties and avoid falling into accepting uncritical manipulative panderings to our confirmation biases! Your capabilities at critical and logical thinking will be illustrated in your posts – as can be seem in the writings of others!

and what makes WLC’s KCA a circular argument etc?

Craig starts with “faith objectives” – such as the universe having some “purpose” (usually given as creating humans to obey and worship some god). He constructs obscure arguments to prop up these assumed preconceptions – often fallacious arguments.

Questions such as: “‘Why does anything at all exist?’” are questions for physicists, and are flawed, as the questions should be: HOW does anything at all exist? “Why” assumes purpose, but there is no evidence of “purpose” and certainly no purpose related to humans or required actions of humans by gods in at least 99.999999999999999% + of the observable universe.
There is of course a substantial proportion of the universe which we cannot observe at present.
a) because our technology isn’t good enough for the nearer ones within the observable universe , and
b) because the speed of light makes observation of these areas beyond the observable universe impossible!

It does not matter how logical a subsequent argument is! If it starts from ASSUMED fanciful preconceptions it will lack any material foundation and remain an imaginary “castle in the air” – a notional image in a brain with no material substance in material reality.

Unlike yours?

I look at observational and experimental science results, to constantly test and up date my views!
We live in the space age where both cosmic and microscopic scales are producing a wealth of readily available accurate information, with discoveries coming from the distant past, human history, the understanding of the workings of our planet, and the processes within the wider galaxies and universe.

Ancient fairy-tales and folk-law, or dreamed up castles in the air, are a very poor substitute as explanations of how these features exist or function.
The suggestion that a tiny patch of land in an inkling of time, on a tiny blue speck, within a tiny solar-system, within one of hundreds of billions of vast galaxies, is a “central feature” and “central purpose”of a vast universe, is simply egotistical laughable self delusion!

Put simply: “castles in the air” or “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, are not proved to exist by constructing elaborate complex detailed descriptions of them, or of their supposed functions!

The argument is circular because it ASSUMES a “purpose” (for which there is no evidence), and then claims a god is required to have created this “purpose”! It then claims that this god-created purpose proves that there is a god creating purposes!

God-delusions do have purposes:- but those purposes are the controlling of the minds of the indoctrinated followers to comply with the requirements of the religious leaders who wear the badge of their god, as “authority” for their claims and demands on the population.

These purposes, have nothing to do with the workings of the vast universe, but are local to within groups of religious followers.

Reckless and Alan… When the revelation told that a huge amount of Messengers and Prophets were sent to humankind , many of them were sent scattered at the same time, other were relatives or even father-son-grandson like [ Ibrahim-Izaak-Jacob-Joseph ]…I am not pretending that is registered in Geology, but when taking that in consideration it results that the human race is deeply rooted in History … and do not contradicts any age given by geologists. But earth was long long before existed and transformed , many verses describe these transformations…. I had given one verse earlier [ Quran (79:30) And after that He has spread out the earth in the egg-shape (for habitability).31.He draweth out therefrom its moisture and its pasture;32.And the mountains hath He firmly fixed; ].. the original word used means spread out and Ostrich egg…When it comes to Hadith of forty two nights is very very meaningful , with word [ night ] it becomes forty one days and a half …And from this age, crucial transformations appear .. [ To proportion it ]…from this age the human feature begins to appear … [create its hearing and sight ].. the eye-ear cleavages appear and the optic and auditive nerves begin intensively to develop… an there is no way to know the fecundation time and anatomic differentiations … Many of these features were not known until the the 80s of the twenty century …I will cite a book.. the Developing Human. Clinically Oriented Embryology … Keith L. Moore, T.V.N Persaud, Marck G. Torchia..An edition of this book was edited with Islamic additions designed to medicine students of Ontario and Manitoba…teaching them comparative embryology between modern sciences and Quran-Hadiths…Even the author urged the scientific community of Canada to rename many stages of embryology according to Quran-Sunah.. because of their meanings..And when T.V.N Persaud was asked about the scientific miracles in the Quran which he has researched, he stated the following:

“…Muhammad .. could not read, didn’t know to write. – You have someone illiterate making profound pronouncements – amazingly accurate about scientific nature. [so] many accuracies – I have no difficulty in my mind that this is a divine inspiration or revelation which led him to these statements.”

“…Muhammad .. could not read, didn’t know to write. – You have someone illiterate making profound pronouncements – amazingly accurate about scientific nature. [so] many accuracies – I have no difficulty in my mind that this is a divine inspiration or revelation which led him to these statements.”

It would be quite amazing, if as a war-lord ruler, he did not talk to anyone who could read and write, or to anyone who had been informed of the wisdom known in the previous centuries – going back to the Greeks and Egyptians!
If the quotes recorded, are properly attributed to him, then obviously he had people around him who could read and write!

I will cite a book.. the Developing Human. Clinically Oriented Embryology … Keith L. Moore, T.V.N Persaud, Marck G. Torchia..
An edition of this book was edited with Islamic additions designed to medicine students of Ontario and Manitoba…teaching them comparative embryology between modern sciences and Quran-Hadiths…
Even the author urged the scientific community of Canada to rename many stages of embryology according to Quran-Sunah.. because of their meanings.

It is no surprise that apologist believers write these sorts of faith-based books! Christian Young-Earth creationists also have authors writing and proclaiming their own (different) versions of pseudo-science!
There are even rich devotees who are sponsoring “research” into trying to show science is compatible with religion, because they really, really, really, want to believe it is so!
Millions of dollars have been paid over many years, but so far NO confirmed evidence of compatibility has been discovered.

Modern scientists have no interest in gratuitously disputing religious texts, but do insist that statements which claim to be scientific, MUST be supported by scientific evidence obtained by using dependable and reputable scientific methodology, and that it must not be distorted or misrepresented to make it compatible with mythology or ideology.

A lot of earlier historical claims HAVE been refuted by modern science, beyond all reasonable doubt!

Divine revelations to illiterates? The imaginations of 7th century people were full of them. Here’s another one, though this one was from the Christian god, it seems. We know this is definitely true because it was written down in a book (* cough *).

Cædmon (/ˈkædmən/ or /ˈkædmɒn/; fl. c. AD 657–684) is the earliest English (Northumbrian) poet whose name is known. An Anglo-Saxon who cared for the animals at the double monastery of Streonæshalch (Whitby Abbey) during the abbacy (657–680) of St. Hilda (614–680), he was originally ignorant of “the art of song” but learned to compose one night in the course of a dream, according to the 8th-century historian Bede. He later became a zealous monk and an accomplished and inspirational Christian poet.

Cædmon is one of twelve Anglo-Saxon poets identified in medieval sources, and one of only three of these for whom both roughly contemporary biographical information and examples of literary output have survived.[1] His story is related in the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (“Ecclesiastical History of the English People”) by Bede who wrote, “[t]here was in the Monastery of this Abbess a certain brother particularly remarkable for the Grace of God, who was wont to make religious verses, so that whatever was interpreted to him out of scripture, he soon after put the same into poetical expressions of much sweetness and humility in Old English, which was his native language. By his verse the minds of many were often excited to despise the world, and to aspire to heaven.”

Cædmon’s only known surviving work is Cædmon’s Hymn, the nine-line alliterative vernacular praise poem in honour of God which he supposedly learned to sing in his initial dream.

And here’s his Hymn, translated into modern English, though believe me, GE, the original Old English version is so beautiful, so poetic, so inspiring that no human could possibly have written it without divine inspiration and you really need to read it in the Old English to get the full power of it (* another cough *). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A6dmon%27s_Hymn :

Now [we] must honour the guardian of heaven,

the might of the architect, and his purpose,

the work of the father of glory

as he, the eternal lord, established the beginning of wonders;

he first created for the children of men

heaven as a roof, the holy creator

Then the guardian of mankind,

the eternal lord, afterwards appointed the middle earth,

the lands for men, the Lord almighty.

And the Christian god who revealed this hymn to poor, illiterate, cow-herder Caedmon was at least smart enough not to include claims about reality (such as embryology, for example) that science would later show to be hopelessly inaccurate.

In science, from the grandest theories down to the most minute details, there is a beauty that comes from the parsimony and elegance of everything we know so far thanks to the hard work of our most intelligent, ambitious and capable people on earth. Beware of those who insist on inserting an element of the supernatural into our math and science – when that happens then we lose that parsimony and elegance goes right along with it. What we will be left with is a cumbersome, utterly subjective and therefore useless fiction that will stagnate society and serve the interests of those who intend to hold us all down for their own benefit.

Mountains are built, worn away, deposited in marine sediments, recycled into the Earth’s crust, – moved around on tectonic plates, launched skywards by massive volcanic explosions, shaken up by earthquakes. – Anything but FIXED!

Having spent plenty of time in the company of illiterates in another part of the world, I am completely amazed by the various compensations they use to proceed through their day and accomplish many tasks for which I depend on reading and writing. (I would actually love to do a research project on this topic).

One thing that astounded me was the observation that the illiterates I observed had massively well developed memories that made me realize just how inadequate my own memory was. I’m very sure they viewed me as being somehow intellectually disabled because I don’t carry around a cookbook of recipes in my brain or accounting sheets of who owes who how much money or names, dates and places of what happened when, or to do lists, or even the most detailed tall tales and amusing stories and jokes that hold a hallowed place in that part of the world as an important source of daily entertainment. That’s right, I memorize none of this material. I access all of this in written form.

The great storytellers of a bygone era may have been completely illiterate but based on my observations, they must have had superior memory skills that I can’t even imagine having. Even in my own place and times, I remember my grandparents and others of their generation showing their memory skills by reciting long poems and sections of the Bible. When I was a child, my great uncle encouraged me to memorize the poems The Song of Hiawatha by Longfellow and Paul Revere’s Ride also by Longfellow. When I managed to commit enough of the poems to memory he bought me my own shiny new harmonica and taught me to play it.

That generation held rote memorization in high regard but for people like me who have to write down even a five item grocery list, the observation of another person reciting a long poem or acting onstage in a drama that goes on for an hour or more with no prompting is somehow incredible! How in the world are they doing this?! I’m not at all surprised that some think it’s a miracle. If you’ve never seen a talented illiterate in action then that must seem like the only reasonable explanation. It’s a mistake to think that illiterates are stupid. They may have a few stupid people in their numbers but plenty of them are smart and smarter than me which I have no problem admitting. They do lack education and they’ve put certain compensations in place. Don’t underestimate these talents and compensations.

I’m speculating here – but I think that prophet Mo must have been quick witted, very ambitious, manipulative and yes, maybe a gifted poet. He assessed his skills, talents and opportunities and came up with a winning game plan. The ability to create and perform his (apparently) beautiful and inspiring verses resulted in promoting him to the top alpha dog position in his tribe and rallied a following that spread his version of monotheism through a great territory. The simple substance of the poetry he created betrays the wants, desires and challenges faced by a male resident of the Middle East who lived more than one thousand years ago which prophet Mo morphed into some (apparently) gorgeous poetry in his native Arabic language (with a few borrowings from Persian and other sources which is never acknowledged by his followers – whatever.)

These works of poetry that we experience as children and now adults have the ability to elicit profound emotions when we read or hear them again. Somehow, the words are stored away along with poignant feelings. When the words ring out the emotions come rushing back. I can hardly read Hiawatha without crying. Sections of Romeo and Juliet make me cry. This is what readers of the Koran and Bible and many other works are feeling too.

It was formed in the early Solar-System from small planetoids in the accretion disk, which aggregated into larger planets, and then: – as explained in the Giant Impact Hypothesis, by the collision of two planets which then formed the Earth and the Moon from the impacted materials.

My nan was about four feet tall and couldn’t read or write and was the only breadwinner as my grandad was a drunk. She would go to Turkey, from Cyprus, and smuggle gold items back in her bra. She would then go from village to village selling her items. She would know how much she paid for each, and there were quite a few items, and would also know who owed her what, if they could not pay for it in one go. This was ongoing accounts all in her head.

One source on Mo and poetry. It is easier to remember words in set in rhythm isn’t it? A friend of mine, who was also tone deaf, was always amazed at my ability to sing a song from start to finish. Maybe the fact he was tone deaf prevented him from feeling the rhythm????

Ha! Yes, that’s very interesting about your nan. I know an elderly woman in the city of Oran who took me under her wing and liked to have me hang around her villa in those days, I suspect I served as a curiosity item for when her clients would come and go all day – buying and selling gold jewelry. These women are called “commersants”. Sorry, can’t spell anything in French. She, like nan was illiterate and kept every transaction in her head. Large amounts of money were involved too. Big wide belts made of gold and every other kind of jewelry. One day on a visit she had a session of hard bargaining with another woman who came to buy. I sat quietly observing. We served the client coffee and sweets of course and when she left, my commersant friend looked straight at me slyly and uncovered a huge gold belt, smiled and I understood she made a very favorable deal for herself. We finished the coffee and sweets with no further words necessary.

The wedding gifts of gold that a bride receives from her husband’s family are a financial security net for these women when in times of trouble. There is a whole black market run by women for the buying and selling of gold. The day she marries and receives the gold – she has what she needs to wheel and deal!

Putting rhymes to music helps a lot! Why do you think I can still remember the formula for a quadratic equation for decades after I learned it in middle school?!
First you see a minus B. Plus or minus the square root you see. B squared minus four a c. All over two a for thee!

[A Preacher] … highlights for me the problem … as to why the universe is logically apprehendable

Why is that a problem, exactly?

Why can’t it just be a fact of life?

Why can’t it be an interesting conundrum for you to take out and worry at, like a dog with a bone, in those difficult-to-fill moments before sleep?

Classification into sets aside, what makes you think the the universe is truthfully apprehended by anyone?

For me, pleb on the bus, no matter how clever, how scientificalisticalist you are, the problem is apprehendability

I can’t find a definition for “scientificalisticalist”, do tell.

Either something creates universes or nothing does

That’s a false dichotomy, or a black and white fallacy, I forget.

Null does

How interesting. How do you know?

What is Null?

The something or the null have to be constant

I’m always willing to learn; why do they have to be constant? I can see why you might begin to think this way if you’re convinced by your false dichotomy – but to me, the other pleb on the bus, that seems like a leap in the dark.

Null creates universes

An unsubstantiated assertion – come on! you can do better than that. You’re in danger of giving us bus riders a bad name here.

Or is that the same as saying. Null. Universes. ?

I dunno.

What makes you think universes are created?

I believe Hawking doesn’t believe necessarily in the multiverse, whereas Guth does

Good for them.

The multiverse being the something that generates universes as opposed to the null that does/not …

This is the version of Hawking versus Guth for us plebs, I presume.

… that is: because there can be null there can be not null. The something being an uncaused ‘infinite’, ‘eternal’, net zero-entropy, quantum vacuum field

Your flying way over this plebs’ head – a cosmologist I am not.

… why [does] anything and everything … not randomly appear into existence without a cause?

That would be a great question, if I could first be convinced that everything can only come into existence if it is caused. Until quite recently I was happy not knowing – but physicists of the very small have started insisting that it depends on what we mean by nothing, a cause and by existence, and making me think about how the universe is based on probability and chaos rather than on binary logic, or randomness.

Know anyone with a substantive answer?

short version: Andrew Loke reasons that if one thing begins to exist without any antecedent then many other kinds of things can begin to exist without an antecedent …

Andy continues: … there could not be any antecedent which would make universes (rather than other things existing without an antecedent) begin to exist …

This guy seems to know a lot I’ve never read in any physics book. He must be a Nobel Laureate.

Andy continues: the properties of universes and the properties of other kinds of things which (sic)(surely: what) differentiate between them would be had by them only when they had already begun to exist. In that case our universe would have been very different

Apart from the fact that I cannot see how Andy’s conclusion follows from his premises (Yes, I did study the full text) – it looks suspiciously like another leap in the dark to me – he offers no evidence in your extract. An outlandish opinion then, whether claimed as based on science or philosophy.

Andy, I take it, is persuaded by Guth’s argument – is that how this goes?

Feels right to me. In me water. On the bus.

Time to get off for a pee?

Now believe it or not, in me water …

You really should see a doctor about that.

I can think of a better organ to use in these circumstances than the bladder – and, let’s be honest, bladders that ‘say’ anything more than ‘it’s time’ are especially suspect.

I feel that to imply that a bowl of petunias or half man, half biscuit must come in to existence alone or within a universe because they can in eternal infinity is … just a bit silly

I don’t know what an eternal infinity is. This does not, of course, mean that it doesn’t (they don’t?) exist. Either way the existence of an infinity, or a universe, or an eternity, is distinctly not dependent on what I feel about it – even, drum roll please, if I think it’s silly. Quantum uncertainty is silly. It exists. Get over it.

… implying quantum perturbations and actual universes with any of the infinite array of apparently random valued dimensionless constants can isn’t [silly]?

Not silly according to many physicists and cosmologists. This pleb’s understanding of the current state of Big Bang science: For the most part their fellow physicists and cosmologists say that there are several possible interpreatations of the facts and that this is as good as most – with some interpretations being a lot more silly and a lot less likely. It’s not worth getting my knickers in a twist over, mostly because the scientists seem to agree a lot more on another hypothesis: That the physics we know breaks down when we turn the clock back far enough (close enough to the BB singularity).

But we never see that

What about the Big Bang?

We see a sublimely rationally apprehendable universe

Sublime, really? The Universe that’s out to get us, and assuredly will in the end?

There are so many problems with that statement, I’m not sure where to begin. Are humans rational? I have met many who are clearly not – even when they try really, really, hard. Do they, even the few who can properly call themselves intelligent, apprehend the truth – and if so, how much of the truth?

Ours is the sort of universe that throws up half-wits, as we bus-passenger-plebs surely know. Why would the Universe not be ‘apprendable’ to those plebs it produces – to the limit of their ability to understand? Viewed this way the Universe is humdrum, even banal.

The Universe is logical, that much seems certain, and this means it is frequently not possible to divine its inner workings through intuition. Indeed, the Universe seems, when studied through a factual lense, to be anti-intuition. Given that we got our intuition by growing up in the Universe it seems to me that this is a clue for how much the Universe really loves us and wants us to understand it … NOT!. The reality appears to be that we are challenged to break away from that mode of thinking. I haven’t met anyone yet who couldn’t. Though, to be fair, for many people it takes a lot of effort, and the effects wear off very quickly. That includes me.

The implications of acausality to plebs on the bus don’t arise.

Don’t judge all us plebs by your standards. It has no bearing on my daily life, I’ll grant you that, but it does make this short life more interesting, mysterious, delightfully perplexing and colourful in a way I can’t get anywhere else.

Any-how, now that I have perambulated my way through your erudite thoughts with my size 9 mental-hobnail-boots on (what I laughably call “my understanding”), I would be most grateful if you could shed some light on what you were really trying to say – (in your best brummy accent) ‘cos it looked intrestin’, like.

…I will cite a book.. the Developing Human. Clinically Oriented
Embryology … Keith L. Moore, T.V.N Persaud, Marck G. Torchia..An
edition of this book was edited with Islamic additions designed to
medicine students of Ontario and Manitoba…teaching them comparative
embryology between modern sciences and Quran-Hadiths…

Not surprisingly, T V N Persaud is a fully paid-up muslim apologist, while as for Keith Moore, back in 1980 he took up a three-year (presumably lucrative) junket to Saudi Arabia, to lecture on anatomy and embryology at King Abdulaziz University. While he was there, Moore was approached by the Embryology Committee of King Abdulaziz University for his assistance in interpreting certain verses in the Qur’an and some sayings in the Hadiths which referred to human reproduction and embryological development. While there, Moore says that he was “amazed” at the “scientific accuracy” of some of the statements which were made in the 7th century AD. It is not reported what is Dr Moore’s level of fluency in 7th. century Arabic.

Biologist PZ Myers later critiqued his work:
“For instance, the book claims that at one point the embryo looks like a piece of chewed gum, or mudghah, and Moore announces, “by golly, it does, sorta”, throwing away all the knowledge we have about the structure and appearance of the actual embryo, which is not a chewed lump! ”

In 2002, Moore declined to be interviewed by the Wall Street Journal on the subject of his work on Islam, stating that “it’s been ten or eleven years since I was involved in the Qur’an.”

First thanks for the reply and second thanks for linking us in the description it really does help people follow the thread of the conversation.

Reckless and Alan… When the revelation told that a huge amount of Messengers and Prophets were sent to humankind , many of them were sent scattered at the same time, other were relatives or even father-son-grandson like [ Ibrahim-Izaak-Jacob-Joseph ]…I am not pretending that is registered in Geology, but when taking that in consideration it results that the human race is deeply rooted in History…

But surely this starts at Adam? Do you not believe the Earth was created in 6 days (I can’t remember from when I read the Q’uran)? And even if I grant you that there is no overlap it’s still far from 4.5 billion years. So overlapping makes matters far worse is half of those existed withing the lifetime of the others then the age of the Earth goes down not up. You have claimed that some lived till 1000 years, did none of them get killed at 200 or even at 20, if even some of them did then the Age of the Earth falls by your metric. Even with me granting you is the best case for 1000 year living people one being born directly after the other has died. So it doesn’t solve your issue with god only being able to give very general statements in this case about 36 times too small.

“…Muhammad .. could not read, didn’t know to write. – You have someone illiterate making profound pronouncements

You know the Mormons say exactly the same thing about Joseph Smith. I didn’t find anything in the Q’uran very profound to be honest, there were a few nice bits but nothing earth shattering or really impressive.

– amazingly accurate about scientific nature. [so] many accuracies – I have no difficulty in my mind that this is a divine inspiration or revelation which led him to these statements.”

Yet, every one of the things you have sighted for us have been easily pulled to pieces some dramatically so. Your explanation of the date of the Earth is a classic case in point God could have simply said “The Earth is 4.54 billion years old”. Instead you a fluffing around with adding up prophets and suggesting that as some lived till 1000 (no mention of how many) that this somehow equates to the age of the earth. As I said even in the best case you’re looking at 36 times the difference between the two figures! this is not accuracy! By contrast Quantum mechanics (invented by man) can measure things with such accuracy that the equivalent of margin for error is a human hair compared the the width of the United States! That is merely human accuracy, what could a God do? Apparently he can’t get within 36 times the correct answer?

I accept that you have no difficulty in your mind accepting this, most religious people do, I did when I was religious I clung to my beliefs until they were so internally contradictory I could not sustain it any more and still consider myself an honest person. So sympathize with you and genuinely appreciate that you are prepared to engage in this debate with us at all, most religious will not mix in any way with anyone with another point of view so good on you God Exist. I do hope you will start reading from outside the Q’uran as there is a big world out there full of wonder and it doesn’t have to be consistent with your holy book the universe is what it is and will do as it’s nature dictates, life is generally better if your beliefs agree with reality.